When the Man Comes Around: A SHIELD Codex
by KhamanV
Summary: When Thanos strikes a distant Nova Corp outpost with the power of his newest Infinity Stone in his fist, Loki and the Agents of SHIELD know that time has run out not only for them, but for the entire universe. All hopes now rest on Loki's closely held, mysterious plan to halt the Titan's advance - but for many, the question will forever linger: Can he be trusted? (Codex 13)
1. Till Armageddon

When the Man Comes Around: A SHIELD Codex

. . .

 **Part One:** The Whirlwind in the Thorn Tree

 _I became a virtuoso of deceit. It wasn't pleasure I was after, it was knowledge._ _I consulted the strictest moralists to learn how to appear, philosophers to find out what to think, and novelists to see what I could get away with._ _And in the end, I distilled everything to one wonderfully simple principle: Win or die. ~ Dangerous Liaisons_

. . .

1\. Till Armageddon

. . .

It was a border world, an isolated sanctum, a primitive near-utopia with Nova Watchpost Station 108 glinting high above the lush green surface and diamond-glitter sands in such a perfect orbit that the pre-industrial species that called the planet home knew it only as a tiny and distant odd-shaped moon. All but forgettable among the other orbiting detritus and three other larger moons that controlled its tides and seasons. Nova Corp did not bother them, using the vantage to keep a distanced eye not only on the outer rim of the local galaxy, but also to run a decades long science project on the implications of fluctuating temperature changes in the local void zone. Not as cold as the Eridanus, but remarkable to the scientists all the same. They sent probes out into it, knowing they might not get a response from the machinery until their distant descendants might one day patrol by.

For light, they had distant twin stars conjoined in a near eternal dance. For entertainment, they had a 100% uptime fatline connection to the central Nova Corp terminus and all the feeds they could piggyback, legit and black market both. For the Corpsmen assigned, the locale was bucolic and uninteresting, the kind of job often given to the tired or the older officers or the ones with enough of a scientific and slow bent to help out in the mid-rings of the facility. The handful of younger personnel were the brash ones, sent out into the wilderness to ease their more bloodthirsty instincts by solitude and enforced temperance. This included their command staff; well-intentioned but fiery. They were given time to learn patience.

None of them went to the planet below. None of them would, until the planet itself initiated contact or at least broke the riddle of space travel. They were, according to top estimates, at least five hundred years from that threshold with planetary calculations suggesting the civilizations had thousands of years of natural resources to help them. The scientists were optimistic they were observing a world with many millennia of vibrant life ahead of them, and a chance for many more.

Not a single one suggested the end could be soon. There was simply no reason to think the unthinkable.

. . .

The black ship fell into low planetary orbit from what seemed to the watchpost's sensors as literally nowhere, the sleek and organically grown length of the war-vessel casting a shadow across the world below that blacked out a continent. Sirens screamed throughout the facility, ordering all hands to combat-ready positions, and defense squadrons into the hangars for possible launch. Automated scanners indicated this was one of several worst-case scenarios; a situation so immediately threatening that it might require lighting up the sky of the world below on their behalf. An interloper, one visibly an imminent and deadly threat.

The invading ship was absolutely that. Corpsman K'var's gnarled, purple-pink fingers grabbed the console he stood at, pitching his voice for the entire command deck to hear. "Ship's profile identified. Verification: Dreadnaught-class. Chassis type: Seems to be customized Chitauri. Sub-type... ahhh... subtype is..." He stopped himself, swallowing once. "Titanian Eternal. It's one of Thanos's, sir. It might even be a flagship, scanners are still assessing data."

Corp Command Gervan didn't budge from where he stood at the central command station, though his shoulders tensed tight enough to cause his sleek uniform to squeak softly. That couldn't be possible. According to all confirmed reports, Thanos was on the other side of the galaxy. He shook his head once, sharp. That didn't matter. What was before them did. "All hands, we are in immediate threat vector. Brace for combat, initiate full response. Defensive line, get the shield probes up across the surface and ready them for activation. Prepare assault launch on a two minute mark or less."

"Where'd it _come_ from?" The startled question wavered up from somewhere in the front of the room.

Gervan snapped back his reply. "Doesn't matter right now. Get those fighters in the sky."

"Sir!" The new shout came from a console on the other side of the deck a moment later. "We have motion from the ship."

"Bring it up." Gervan's thin, birdlike hands rested on the ice cold plas and steel bar of his console as the live images poured across the wall screen and then automatically zoomed in to ensure he saw the horror plain. Wormlike monstrosities, dozens of them, each one small compared to the size of the vessel currently trespassing. Each one still the size of a destroyer-class vessel. He recognized them from central Corp briefings. The Leviathans, typically troop carriers with extra destructive capabilities. These ones looked upgraded from the ones that hit Sol Sector a little over three years prior, the ones that violated that world's no-contact policy. Now that planet – Earth – got cut in on the line whenever Thanos came up. The rest was above his pay grade.

Gervan swore, a single brutish word that cracked out from the slight beak. He glared down at the appropriate officer. "Get those shields up!"

"They're already past the barricades, sir."

"Get them up anyway! Slow the d'ast advance!"

The officer did as he was told, his face telling the commander what he didn't want to hear. It was already too late. Gervan swore again. "Tactical assessment of the troops?"

"There's no lifesigns except for the worms, sir. They're not carrying troops. We're running grid on the changes. Statistics due to report in at the thirty second mark."

"Get the launch vessels on the Leviathans, ASAP. Slow it all down, however we can." A note of tension entered his voice. The words gave it away – this was happening too fast. Too goddamn fast. First they came from nowhere, now the organic dropships with no troops loaded in defiance of previous intel. What the hell was going on?

He got his answer as the live feed gained a sub-image. The shield probes doubled as intel satellites, picking up vid from the surface. The first two Leviathans broke cloud barrier and came into view of the shadowed populace below. His skin crawled under the suit as the chitinous armor of the massive worm-beasts went hot, first a blacksmith's garish red and then sparking white fire. He spoke his thoughts aloud, his voice cold and clacking against his lower bill as he understood what he was seeing. "They're going to scorch the surface clean. Full sanitization. Haven't seen that since the Dril Wars."

A genocide protocol so cold-hearted it received uncontested intergalactic outlawing after it was all over but for the screaming of the few off-world survivors.

"What's the d'ast goal?" K'var muttered the question from his console. "Statistics coming in. They're backing you, sir. They're dead down there if we can't get ahead of this. Four more Leviathans breaching low atmosphere. They're going to get to the next continent in three minutes. First low-orbit combat reports coming in."

"Pull the skirmish up on the other feed."

"It's already over." K'var ran his gnarled hand along the side of his face in lieu of letting unprofessional panic enter his voice, pulling up the debris field for his commander to look at. Behind him, other personnel ran back and forth at the almost mundane work of trying to manage a global disaster. "We took a full loss; they're using short range fire from smaller skiffs sticking close to the central vessel. Dreadnaught's powering up mid-range defenses. Second launch preparing on our end. Statistics doesn't think we can catch up. They're running recovery and retreat options in the free cycles."

Gervan tore at the steel bar in frustration, looking at the strewn steel and leaking drive fluids of almost fifty destroyed fighters against the black of space and the gleaming aura of the planetary atmosphere below. "Get a data package out on the feeds, now! All emergency lines, give them everything we've got up to the millisecond! Keep it going!" He turned to K'var, struggling for a calmer tone. "Do they make any projections as to the goal? The planet's of no major strategic value at all."

"With the information they can get, not y-"

He was interrupted with a different answer, a different suggestion for the primary mission target. Klaxons screamed throughout the facility, a high-pitched screech designed to drag even the deepest sleeper into immediate wakefulness. A siren that indicated a hostile boarding party. By trained instinct, hands flew immediately to combat sidearms. K'var changed priorities and flung the data from the internal sensors of the watchpost up to fill the screen instead.

They were being swarmed. Gervan blanched at the coldly mathematical sight of forty heavily armed Chitauri troops just outside the command deck's door. "No hull breach. Just popped in somehow, like the ship. Gods. Fight them off as best we can!"

The resounding thud against the deck's sealed door put a doubt in his mind as to how long they could realistically hold the line. He braced himself, laser weapon at the ready. "Keep the feeds outgoing! No matter what, Nova Prime needs to know what happened here!"

"Sir!" Voices chorused from the entire deck, frightened and furious.

The door blew open and _they_ poured in, shrieking gray murder.

. . .

Thanos stood on the bony bridge of the _Mortalus_ , that great black dreadnaught of his own specialized design, watching the planet's surface boil away into purified ash only to be followed by the silent implosion of Watchpost Station 108. His bulky arms were clasped behind him, the pose deceptively easy and his smile toothy and well-pleased within the golden helm. "The point, Amora, was to send a message. One so clear as to ensure its intent cannot be mistaken." He turned his broad head slightly to regard the small Asgardian woman posed delicately at his side. "Space has been tamed and made my own. There is no hiding from me. All the universe has left is fleeting time, and the mercies of my whim. And I am not a whimsical man." He turned away again to regard the poetry of destruction, his latest love letter to Her, his only chosen mistress, that dead figure still just outside his reach. "They may be permitted to know the shape of my approach, so they may learn to tremble. This is the first hour of a becoming, when at the end I will be as a new God at my love's side."

"My lord," murmured Amora, regarding the now-burning atmosphere of the harmless world with only a chill inside where her soul should be. "I am ever foolish to question thy method. I submit again to our future."

"I am not whimsical, but I am capable of forgiveness when the trespass is... minor." He flicked a hand towards her, a move that was oddly elegant despite his great size. The hand was still bare, that sickly raw purple of his mutation. It was not time for the gauntlet to be worn in full glory and promise. Not yet. "Come. I wish to behold my returning troops. They sing for me when they are victorious. I find it pleasing, their discordant chitter. The noise is ugly to the ear, but the intent is pure, and thus beautiful. From a certain point of view."

Amora bowed her head, letting her golden hair spill along her arms. She loathed the insectoid beasts, and they her. The Chitauri, being his, did not fear death. They only misliked being wasted, as she had done in her fury against Asgard's defenses, and their opinion of her was well-known. It did not matter, ultimately. She knelt close to the golden knee and not any of them. She and her sister, who was below with the scientists and the torturers as she was most hours.

They were at last together again at Thanos's side, and now sweet Lorelei preferred to stay away.

. . .

Her name was Nebula, and she lived in hate and hunger between the stitch-surgery blued scraps of herself. Hidden away in the dregs of the galaxy, forcing what free life she could on the coin-sparse margins of what the remaining Kree fanatics that served under Ronan owed her and what she could beat from the bodies of mercenaries who thought themselves up to her challenges. Her sanctuary was dirty and grim, unlike the antiseptically gloomy chambers of 'home.' What a laugh. Home. That prison and training yard Thanos called his 'Sanctuary', there at the edge of some private wisp of space that stored his less important toys and his murder ships. Her priorities were now set only for the stockpile of weaponry she collected in the hidden storehouses below her tiny rooms, and the cutting edge spy-rig she stole and tweaked to keep an eye on dear old 'Dad.'

She'd set up an Omega Protocol program inside its works in a fit of whimsy driven by what had to have been a half-gallon of stolen Shi'ar firewater. Top proof, just a cup guaranteed to get a lightweight drunk for three days. It'd done her for a good night's sleep, anyway. If Thanos actually died without any help from her and the news went across the public wires, the damn thing was supposed to go up in a series of sparks intended to look like fireworks. Nebula was certain the good news was never going to come _that_ easily.

The flicker of the jacked feed pulled her from a dream where everything she'd ever known was dead and she stood among their corpses with a smile that hurt her face, unwanted wakefulness forcing her to glance up and see what _he'd_ done to some pointless planet on the Outer Rim. She lifted herself up on her cybernetic elbow, reaching out with her other hand to scroll through the relevant intel already screaming along hundreds of inter-related security lines. "I see you. So what's the game?"

The feeds didn't tell her anything she couldn't already know. "Flashing your muscles already." She snorted and pulled the ratty blanket into a pool on her lap as she sat up. "Got your new pets in line, got your rock doing what you tell it. Guess that means all the little toy soldiers are gonna start lining up against you to try to tear off a piece." She looked up at the rivet ceiling, considering. "Guess I need to make some final decisions about where I am in that scene."

Nebula's hand reached out again to pull up the disorganized files she'd been mulling over for months. What gamble to back, essentially. Who to go to, with what she had, she knew, and what she could aim right at the throat of the man that made her and then remade her. A replacement for Ronan, whose defiance had been like a open flame. She gave up an ugly smile as she pulled open the file of her top contender, the closest thing to a dark horse bet.

Not _him_ , of course. Loki was already on the board on his own terms, another one of Thanos's broken pets rummaging around in the wreckage. She'd sniffed his trail elsewhere and didn't have too many hopes for whatever he was up to. Didn't like him, either. Pretty, dangerous, but also unstable. She was unstable enough for everyone, embraced it as a strength. She needed something to balance that out. But _this_ one, now. Also currently on Earth. Not a bad option. Another true believer, according to what encoded broadcasts she managed to skim off their local chatter. A would-be God King, with ambition and drive.

She pulled up the only picture she had, a quick-skim snapshot of a figure that had been allowed to go on the air of the small country's dominant propaganda network. A technopriest in a metal suit of silver and steel, not Titan's gold. The parallel delighted her and she studied the blurry mask just barely visible under the green hood. She flashed white teeth at the picture. Perfect teeth; the best the scientists could make. She remembered the replacement of every one, the agonizing cauterization that followed when they flashed each new nerve into place. Daddy's orders. Start good, make it better. His definition of better, of course. The smile spread fit to match her dreams, becoming a hateful sneer. "I like you. Let's get ready to find out if you'll like me. Don't worry, lover. I'll set the date and make all the dinner arrangements."


	2. Under Pressure

2\. Under Pressure

. . .

Tony Stark looked at the gathered throng scattered across his expensive couches and lazy leather seats, early morning light flickering in from the tower's wide windows to streak across each tired, annoyed face. "Look, don't get upset with _me_ , people. It's not my call. I'm technically still on my staycation. Technically, we can argue if I can even call myself an Avenger right now."

"Except for when you're passing emails with foreign ambassadors over whatever the hell this is you've got in the pipeline, yeah, you're totally on vacation." muttered Sam Wilson into the palm set across his lower face. "Yeah, man. Except for that." He exchanged looks with Steve, taking obvious comfort in the fact that the captain didn't look too pleased with the early morning demand for an emergency meeting either. Steve sat on the edge of the firmest couch in the room, the soldier forever ready for whatever came next. He was the only one that didn't look under-caffeinated. Instead he was forever alert, stoic, and with a cautious eye on Tony as he paced the floor.

"I didn't hear that, but whatever, gonna ignore it anyway. Also- _staycation_. If it were a vacation, I'd be up to my ass in sunscreen and roasted pepitas at beachside." Tony gestured at the experimental pilot with his bottle of seltzer water, flicking his eyes towards Thor for a backup that didn't come. He was content to lean silently against the bar close by him, strong hands woven together in a tight clasp.

"I thought SHIELD was done?" Scott Lang shrugged, slouching deeper into the fluffiest chair he could find. He drummed his fingers atop the silver and red motorcycle helmet he'd brought in with him because, as he'd explained to the Falcon, 'the valet guy looked shifty and I know shifty.' The soft thrumming kept getting him looks, but he didn't notice. "I didn't pay attention to a lot of news in, um, prison, but I got that part. Because it was kind of a big deal. Headline-grabbing, you know? Read about it over the shoulder of a gang leader a couple times. Um."

"You don't read the briefing sheets we give you?" Sam craned around to look over his shoulder, one eyebrow cocked in annoyance. Scott shrugged right back, looking distinctly sheepish.

"They are not done," said Wanda. "They are not quite what they have been, however." She crossed her arms against her red tunic, the expression on her face mild and stoic both, her strange deep eyes going up to seek out the Vision's face as he studied her curiously. Her shoulders relaxed slightly at his gentle regard. "I think still this change is perhaps for the best. Sometimes we are wrong about the worst we have seen."

"Change is always for the best. It drives life." The Vision looked away from her, towards Tony. "However. You are concerned about the changes this morning. That concerns me."

Stark shrugged and took a long swig off his bottle, sneaking another quick glance at the silent Asgardian prince leaning against his bar next to Tony's friend, Rhodes. Thor looked evenly back. At least he knew a few hints about the storm that was about to drop on the room, would probably help if someone got riled up. He felt a flicker of disappointment that Bruce Banner hadn't come. Still no word on the lines about where Big Green was hanging out. If anyone had a hint, they weren't giving it out.

On the other side of the room, Barton and Romanoff were content to sip coffee and study the rest of the assembled Avengers, old and new, with professionally blank expressions. The elevator dinged once, followed by the soft chime of Friday, the new AI management. "First arrival, landing now, sir."

Heads turned expectantly towards the double-doors of the elevator on the far side of the room, waiting for it to open. Stark watched them and not the actual arrival. Many already knew what they were seeing. Some just looked puzzled at the average-looking man walking in. Tony took another slug of his water at the way Rogers's face pinched in real surprise, snapping back to look at him. "You knew," mouthed the soldier. It looked like an accusation.

Tony shrugged and looked away, knowing it was going to get a lot worse and a whole lot more entertaining. "Hey, Phil. So, I guess it's bad. Popping out of the birthday cake bad."

"Yeah," said Coulson, his arms folded neat and tight against his sharp-trimmed black suit. "It's pretty goddamn dire, guys. The balloon's up. Mind if I take the floor?"

Tony gestured to him with his water, studiously ignoring Steve's rocky stare. "All you."

. . .

"Hi. For those who don't know, I'm Phil Coulson, the current acting director of SHIELD. I've been dead. The organization damn near did, too. For those of you who didn't know, yeah, I got better. So did the team. I'm also not gonna be your primary brief on this situation." Coulson took the central open space in front of the Avengers, examining each face in turn. His hands were shoved in his suit pockets, shrugging affably through his talk. "At the moment I'm just the fast warm-up first scene in what's gonna be a triple act, so I'll toss you the monologue. Here in New York City, in the year 2012, we experienced what became an international and _galactic_ event that seemed directly related to a previous but vastly smaller event in New Mexico in 2011 – the arrival of an Asgardian on our planet and the engagement of hostilities with a related Asgardian."

Phil nodded once to Thor, the single motion underlining the past while the entire room watched him. "Fact was, that's not the whole story. It's never been the whole story. Last year the situation expanded with the understanding that certain relics left behind from that event were part of another agenda, one with even greater repercussions than has been previously discussed with either team of Avengers. All of that up to now? It's barely the beginning of what you need to know. And if we're not lucky, what we're looking at right now is the end of it." Phil lifted his head to regard The Vision, drawing others to make similar, almost uneasy glances.

An idea was going through the room, walking across faces with its chilly footsteps, giving unwanted knowledge that something awful was coming. The android looked back, tranquil against both the intent and import of what was being said. The elevator chimed again, almost perfectly on time. "That's the set-up. I'm going to relinquish the floor in a moment. A couple of you are probably about to drop bricks, so. Buckle up."

. . .

Steve Rogers stood up in a single dangerously calm motion when Loki emerged from the elevator, the alien in a neat black suit of his own with a visitor's plastic security badge clipped with absurd normalcy to one tailored lapel. His hair was combed neatly back, for a wonder. Loki didn't seem interested in the otherwise silent reaction of the room, pulling the digital tablet out from underneath one arm instead as he swept deeper in.

As he approached the space where Phil had been, he set the tablet down on the counter recently vacated by Stark. He finally looked up when Stark appeared in the corner of his vision, pulling out a bottle of water and casually leaving it for him by his elbow. He furrowed a single black eyebrow up in a question.

"Even I don't break out the sauce until, like, ten. Also, shooting for a dry spell." Stark shrugged offhandedly. "Break a leg, Agent Saruman."

Rogers swiveled his head sharply towards Stark again at that, his own blonde brows knitting together at the latest in a long string of pop culture cracks from the engineer. Realizing the silence was continuing around him, he jerked around to study the otherwise relaxed room. Coulson was a mask, looking at Loki as if he were just another ordinary agent under his watch. Wilson and Rhodes gave each other a puzzled, worried glance, Wilson's shock more obvious. Lang just sat there like a lump. Romanoff had her mouth hidden behind her hand as if laughing while Barton gave her a dirty look. He saw the archer mouth the words ' _you didn't tell Cap?_ _I swear you told me you were going to warn him,'_ before looking away to examine the last few.

Steve sat back down again, shaking his head and trying to figure out exactly what he was seeing. "Okay. This is the worst practical joke ever."

Scott Lang raised his hand, lowered it feebly when Sam Wilson looked at him again. "I have literally no idea who that guy is, if it helps."

"Man, do you read _anything_ we give you? This was part of the introduction packet, you know, the original mission statement? The first freakin' _page_? The Avengers kicked this dude's ass." Sam shook his head wearily at the embarrassed grimace he got in response.

Loki looked down at the captain with a mild, even expression, ignoring the smaller drama in the back of the room. "I'd offer an apology for your distress if I thought it mattered to you."

Steve stared back, mute.

Loki sighed. "Some other time, then." He crossed his arms behind himself, taking a familiar lecturer's cadence. "Twenty-six hours ago and about a half-million light years away, a dreadnought called the _Mortalus_ dropped from nowhere into low atmospheric orbit above a planet whose sentient life was still at pre-industrial levels and proceeded to scour all that life and more from its surface. The Nova Corp station in higher orbit was destroyed at roughly the same time, its troops sending their last moments of struggle across the stars so that we may know what occurred. Now, I've just thrown a circumstance at you that seems terribly distant and features elements distinctly _alien_ to you. Unfortunately this, in grim seriousness, is your world's Pearl Harbor moment. It is the warning bell I have been waiting for. It is the only one we're going to get."

He let that sink in. Romanoff leaned forward, watching him intently. "When I attacked Earth almost four years previous, I did not do so strictly under my own impetus. I had a command line I was answering to. This was not fully divulged at the time; not to you, and not, at first, to Asgard. It was this ultimate superiority that put the scepter in my hands after ensuring my own servitude to it and to him, permitted me an army to manage while he held the leash, and gave me the single order to acquire the Tesseract – an artifact I will from here properly refer to as an Infinity Stone, one affiliated with the concept of Space. I will not waste time suggesting that this means I hold no liability for the events here. I do." That flat admittance caused an odd rustle through the room. "That there was an element of coercion does not alter any responsibility for what occurred. But it will not do to dwell there right now. While painfully relevant to all of us here, it is also the least important detail of what you need to know."

Loki turned slightly to activate his tablet, interconnecting it with Stark's display system. Holo-grids snapped to life above the countertops as he assessed their placement, flicking out his hand in a staccato rhythm until he had all the visual information where he wanted it. "Countless millennia ago, a race of ancient and blindingly powerful beings seeded a number of local galaxies in such a manner that many of us seem, at least at first, to be cut from the same cloth, genetically speaking. Humanoids, if you like, although the word is hard-disputed by other, older races. I have no time nor interest to give in explaining the mysteries of this odd panspermic experiment, but those ancients, these eternal figures, left watchmen behind to shepherd their races and their other creations. Like all genetic experiments, there are... divergences from that intent. They tend towards a certain need to prove themselves, when they survive the challenges of their firstborn life. I say this without a trace of irony."

He pulled a digital composite image front and center, the best one he could make from memory and stolen galactic transmission signals. It showed a brutal looking man in gold, his broad face an unearthly shade of purple. The lips above the cliff-like chin were curved in a cold smile. "This is the warlord Thanos, the descendent of one of these shepherd races; a deviated child of Titan evolution who seeks to make of himself the pinnacle instead of the dead genetic trail. To that end he has honed himself in all ways to be the perfect machine of war.

"But he wants more than that, naturally, and the truth of what he has been is as complex as any individual's story. For now, and in short - he would be a new god, and the courtier of Death Herself. No exaggeration. If that power is not given him, then it will be stolen. And so he seeks these artifacts strewn across the galaxy – the six Infinity Stones. You know directly of a couple of them." His gaze flicked directly to the golden yellow gem set high in the Vision's forehead. "You know now that my mission here on Earth was to use that one to wrest another stone free. The destruction of this distant world is a sign that he has asserted control over the Infinity Stone that had been taken back to Asgard in Thor's keeping when I failed to steal it, and then, very recently, lost to us from within our own realm. This is the one that was always key to his acquisition of the rest, and why it was necessary to be taken early, before many of the others."

Scott raised his hand. "I'm already lost."

"Some dude wants six rocks so he can be super powerful. He snagged one recently, is showing it off, and now's the part where the guy whose ass got kicked in this very house tells us how it's going to get a lot worse than that." James Rhodes sighed his way through the shortened explanation before getting up to pour himself another large mug of coffee from the carafe on a far countertop.

"He will be coming here," said Loki in a voice that turned cold and flat, a deliberate choice to get all attention fixated solely back on him. "Soon. Earth holds something he wants, and he, though this be by my failure, will not let the past shaming of his army stand overlong. You've not only angered him, but interested him. That is much more dangerous. It may be hours before the first strike force comes to test our defenses. It may be days if we're fortunate. The stones are an issue, but they're not for any of us to solve alone. You _must_ be ready to defend this world from him for as long as you can hold out. Whatever your troubles are with one another, whatever strife or civil dispute, you must lay it all aside. _Now_."

Silence. Nervous, uneasy silence.

Loki curtly nodded towards Coulson, followed it up by tapping the knuckle of his thumb against the idling digital tablet on the counter. "SHIELD is already preparing full contingencies, troop structures, and more designed to help. The Director is here to begin arranging forward logistics with your organization based on intel provided from not only myself but several galactic agencies aware of the situation. All of you are needed for this effort. Full information – including further detailed briefs and everything I personally know about Thanos – are available via this tower's information grid as of right now.

"Stark once goaded me by calling to you as 'Earth's Mightiest.' You'd best be. When the dreadnought falls from the stars to hunker among your clouds like some beast, you will be the first and last line this world has. Do you understand?" He didn't bother to try and hide the desperation in his voice.

"If the stones are that important, shouldn't we be focusing on that? Maybe keep Viz here safe?" Rhodey jerked a thumb towards the android, frowning when Loki shook his head.

"The Vision's defense is a wise notion and I support it, but the rest? They're beyond simple human control and you have no method of captaining the stars to so much as approach the others that Thanos seeks. I'm sorry, I don't in the least mean that to be condescending. But nor did I expect you to take my own answer. There is one more who would speak to you and prove the case of what is coming, if you will humor this." He looked towards the Director, who pulled out his phone to check something. "Is she here?"

"Yeah, just arriving." Phil glanced up at the room, apologetic. "I did say it was a three act show."

. . .

The girl stepped into the room; young and brown and serious, her hair hidden away under the dark indigo veil of a brocade silk shawl draped, incongruously, over a comfortable t-shirt. When she saw the gathering in the room a smile filtered across her face instead of the dourness of long tension. "Hello," she said in a smooth English accent touched with just a trace of Mumbai, something about her voice young and old all at once.

"Ma'am," said Steve automatically. He threw a quick glance at the pair of SHIELD agents at the front of the room. "I don't believe we've been formally introduced."

She smiled down at him, her fingers knotting together in front of her. "Not formally, Captain Rogers. I know you nonetheless. I know all of you, for I am Death. I meet all of you at least twice in a given lifetime, and some of you many more times than that." The smile widened, wry and somehow infinitely wise. "If you find my name off-putting, you may call me Salima instead."

Steve looked up at her, utterly blank.

"Look close and you'll recognize, I think. I watched over you in the ice, Captain, trapped between the life you could not keep and the death you would not be permitted, but you were close enough to touch." She looked away, first glancing to Tony, who looked away uncomfortable and already well aware that what she said would be true. She looked to Sam Wilson instead. "I fell with you when your partner's wings were torn from him by the surrounding war and you wondered if you were to be struck next. You prayed. I heard."

He jerked, and his eyes said he believed.

"Scott Lang, in the depths of infinitely shrinking time and space itself, wondering if you would see your family again." Her smile was ironic as his fingers tightened on the helmet. "You were not alone there." Next was Wanda. "I stood at your shoulder as your bro-"

"Stop," she said, plain fright coming through her accent. She half-turned away, looking furtively up at the Vision for something. Perhaps a kind of comfort. He looked back at her without any fear of his own. It helped. "I believe you. It's true. Don't share the moment aloud. It still hurts to feel and still I feel it every day."

Death inclined her head in a polite silence before raising it again and stepping delicately through the room towards the android. Her smile faded as she studied him with gentle curiosity instead. "Only you. The new life born into our dying universe, who alone I was not present for at that first second of becoming."

The Vision bowed his ruby head, causing the stone to catch a stray glint of light.

"The Mind itself, now incarnate and given vision. Given... soul. This is a great rarity, and you hold only life within." She paused for a moment, studying the carved vibranium lines of his artificial face. "Do I frighten you?"

His accent was as smooth as hers; the odd parallel becoming something musical in the still air of the tower. "You do not, ma'am. You are only natural and inevitable, a facet of everything that exists. I cannot bring myself to fear you."

That brought the smile back to her lips. "May I touch your face?"

He bowed his head more deeply as her small brown fingers traced across his brow, careful to avoid the yellow stone set high there. He watched her as she did so, his face taut as if listening to a faint sound, and if something passed between them, it was not for the observers to know. He smiled when she was done, a small, almost childlike smile. "Like all new life, beautiful. Thank you." She stepped away from him, then turned to regard the room once more. "I begin with worse news than you might realize. Thanos does not now have the one stone he fought so hard to acquire. He has two. The first – the Soul Stone – acquired long ago. It was that one that put him to this road, and showed him what he truly desired."

"Which is?" Sam Wilson crossed his arms against his leather jacket, looking disturbed.

Death frowned. "Me."

" _Dude you are like twelve_ ," blurted Scott Lang in the frank horror of a young dad.

"I'm fifteen," shot the girl right back before blinking quickly. She passed a hand across her face, reasserting herself. "And also not strictly bound by mortal age. It's complicated."

"It's still gross as hell."

"On that much, Mr. Lang, we entirely agree." The hand came away from her face with a small smile. "Thanos believes utter destruction is what I want most; an expansion of my first and last Realm, with no boundaries set by fleeting Life. In his first glimpse of the Soul gem, he saw its power warp and change and instead of harboring souls, it consumed them. In the flicker of that horror he saw me overseeing that final death, and thought it the final horizon of infinite power. He believes he serves and seeks me alone, that eternal death is a thing I crave. He does not understand the enormity of his mistake, and he would never listen. All my messages to that end have failed. Instead, I hid as best I could and looked for another way. I hope that this road is what I've sought." Her dark eyes flickered towards Loki, who stood impassive. She'd told him about the stone previous to this session, and saw then on his face an uncomfortable set of realizations. That perhaps in some way, he might have once held a clue.

"An atrocity. He does not understand balance." The android's voice was soft.

"Just so." Death sighed. "And thus here I am with you, aside your former enemy, and your once-lost friend. The stones themselves are _our_ issue. We will do what we can to thwart the warlord's interest in them – for my sake, and for the sake of all. Keep your newborn friend safe, and I beg thee, protect your world as best you can. I am Death, and I ask all of you from the depths of my humility to save Life."

Steve Rogers got up from the couch one more time, looking down at the young girl. Then he looked at Loki. "You've got a bigger plan in mind than we're hearing." It wasn't a question.

"Of course I do," said Loki, his voice mild and without threat.

"Anyone question your motives?"

"All day long. And even the ones with most cause to hate or distrust me would have to concede this much – I have never desired a dead kingdom, and I have a fairly selfish regard for my own life in almost all of my hours."

The soldier studied the prince's face, and found at least some sort of answer. "Then we're on the same side after all. For now."


	3. House of Secrets

3\. House of Secrets

. . .

Coulson watched the two Avengers teams break up into smaller conferences, Thor reaching out to snag his brother's attention with a broad hand and an open glance. He had a few ideas what topics they were going to go into – as much as they could, considering the location. There were a lot of ducks to line up, and Phil hoped they would squawk on cue. As best as they could manage, anyway. To that end, he'd stepped back into the small glass-enclosed lobby by the elevator. The watch he was wearing had a nifty little device in it that should temporarily override any of Stark's monitoring software, up to and including his AI assistants. Not that he was paranoid about intel getting out, but he and Loki needed the team focused on what was ahead of them without diversion. Well, without any additional diversions. The looming specter of the upcoming Sokovia panels added more than enough tension between the groups. If they didn't stay on target, they might be looking at a kind of civil war.

Hence, Loki taking center stage. The Avengers pulled together to concentrate on him once before. Not only Loki, admittedly, but his own brief demise. If this plan came through, if they'd paid attention to what Loki said, that focus would work for them again. A lot rode on that hope.

He glanced at his watch for its primary purpose of telling time, and right on target he felt the modified com device ping in his pocket. He activated the baffler and took the transmission, studying the platinum-haired figure that popped up on the tiny screen. The first time he'd met her seemed so long ago now; time spent in the heart of Asgard while he pleaded the intricate case of his friend's latest crimes to not just the realm's mighty king, but representatives of the local galaxy. "Nova Prime."

"Director Coulson," came the prim, almost haughty voice of Irani Rael. It was the closest she would ever come to a warm greeting and he took it as such. "First I must remind you that we are no longer capable of creating a firm threat window projection based on standard logic. The stone's capability nullifies that."

"Yeah, we were just going over that in a briefing. We're prepping teams that can launch some defense starting four hours from now. Otherwise, we're ready for whatever tries to hit us. Won't lie, we're hoping like hell he goes for a warm-up tickle first and maybe not the full hammer-down protocol."

"I understand the logistics you're dealing with, but try to push up that defensive launch. We're rearranging five squads and some shielders from our own hangers to put in your local orbit, but they won't get into Sol space for another six hours at the earliest. That's after rewriting half our own rules to allow this. Are we clear on your end?"

"I've got dockets on every major government official's desk around the planet. Most of them are probably laughing it off right now, but they'll stop laughing once this goes hot. NASA, the RFSA, and the Chinese scientists are all on board. Your people won't get any weapons fire from us by accident; they've got the ship outline specs you sent and we've had a full presentation from the New York battle ready for ages to back it up. We're also working on setting up landing zones at both Houston and Baikonur's cosmodrome if your people need a pad. We can get a lot more if it swings that way." Coulson paused and considered his next words carefully. "God knows I don't get to make a judgment call on your house, but is everything secure there?"

Rael pursed her lips, otherwise taking taking the comment as shared worry and not an offensive implication. "We're ready to be a target again and I've made certain arrangements, as suggested by our mutual 'friend.' Thanos is not getting Ronan's Infinity Stone without one hell of a fight out of us. First, he'd have to find it. We've kept it in transit until now, with information on a need to know basis."

The tone in her voice told him a lot more than that. He put the unspoken out there, his voice grim. "So we're staying number one in the firing line when he moves again."

"That you are. Are you sure your world is ready for this?"

"Ma'am, all we can do is our best."

The sleek platinum head nodded. "Heard that," she muttered. The words had the familiar bitterness old warriors knew. "Next call in three hours. Nova Prime, out."

. . .

Wanda watched Steve Rogers brace Tony by the far wall before he could slink out to his labs, the two men talking heatedly but not loud enough to carry to the rest of the two teams. Their jaws were tight. "Already there will be squabbling. I understand the man in black cannot be so easily trusted. I know that well, for I would not be as I am today without some of what he did to our world. But he spoke truth in this. I do not need to look into his mind to see. We don't have time for petty battles." She looked up over her shoulder to see Vision watching the same small scene. "This is part of being human, Vision. It is so much conflict and pain. It wearies."

"But the struggle is valuable. As the lady says, we fight for life." He looked away from the pair down to her small round face, through it, and his face was closed in contemplation.

She furrowed her brow at the expression. "Did she say something else to you? When she touched you?"

"We... spoke, yes." His gaze focused on her and he offered a slight smile of comfort when he saw what he said clearly unsettled her. "I'm sorry, Wanda. It was necessarily private."

"She is real, too. I have no doubts. I saw the truth plain in her eyes." She looked away, seeing Death sitting quietly on a cushion while her two SHIELD friends finished their own duties. The girl would smile warmly when others dared to meet her gaze, but few seemed to have the nerve to approach. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Director having a quick videophone conversation in the lobby. "In a human girl's eyes. If I'd touched her, looked into her mind, what would I have seen?"

"Eternity and entropy, and much more than that. Everything. It is better that you did not look." With some hesitation, he gently touched her arm. That he had been 'born' so close to her brother's death had brought her closer to him in the first steps of deep but curious friendship. This was not the first conversation they'd shared about mortality recently, but, he reflected, it was certainly the most directly relevant. "Mystery can be gentler in these hours, under those weights. I'm not afraid of what's coming, Wanda. Does that help?"

"It helps." She sounded thoughtful, watching the two Asgardian brothers confer on the other side of Stark's long bar. "It is less the mystery that troubles me, but the secrets. There are many secrets in this room. And as much as I trust Loki's word that we are in grave danger, quite a number of the secrets here are his."

Vision looked at the tall man in black, his voice quiet. "Yes. That is certainly true."

. . .

"I've got a timetable that's necessarily crunched by no choice of my own and I'm sticking by it as best I may." Loki cast a quick glance over Thor's red-cloaked shoulder, noting carefully which faces studied them and which kept their own counsel. "As I tend to, I assume the worst. It's just as I said. A first strike force within the day. Thanos himself not long after. It depends somewhat on his laziness and ego, but I have no real hopes there. He wants us afraid, though he can afford what is not dawdling but the cat dangling its still-heaving prey. He has confidence now, and what's worse is that he has earned it. We're punching far upwards and we need more time than he will ever give. So that time will have to be taken. That means the plan is our only option, flaws and costs and all."

Thor took that in, stoic. "Your other friends are already in play, then?"

"They are. I received the go-ahead from Gamora an hour before arriving for this meeting. Meanwhile, I've got to tend to my own first target right after this. Strange is waiting on us at his Sanctum. You'll make the last few arrangements here for me?"

"I will." Thor paused, then reached out to grasp his brother's upper arm. "Loki. That you've trusted me as much as you have is meaningful. What you are _not_ telling me is frightening in what it implies. This plan of yours is far more dangerous than you've admitted."

"And it hinges on trust, the one thing I have in the shortest supply." Loki frowned at his brother's raw and open concern, still finding some discomfort in how he felt about the warrior's care for him. "So I have to use mistrust to shore up where I lack, and chaos to pack the rest of the wall. Yes, it's right to be concerned. But you trust me now, after all. And Coulson as well, against all odds. I need that much, to carry the weight the rest of the way. When the hour comes, I need to know you understand what I've got in mind."

"I've listened, Loki. _Listened,_ as you tend to stress." Thor exhaled a heavy breath, glancing down at the tops of his boots. The effect made him youthful again despite his visible might, two boys at the edge of a forbidden wood, playing games away from their family's eyes. "I was wrong. It was not Ragnarok that came to our home, sundered our city and tried to sunder all of us. Ragnarok is instead here, and I find I still fear it."

Loki reached up to pat at the hand that grabbed him. "The legend will fail here, too. I promise. However this story is told, I swear to you that it will not be the end of all things."

"Good luck, then, brother. I'll send what information I can by Coulson."

"By the schedule, if you can."

"By the schedule." Thor watched Loki turn away, reaching a hand towards the young immortal on the cushion. She smiled easily up at him, then at Coulson as well when he stepped back into the room. The great warrior watched the trio leave together a moment later, the worry gnawing afire in his guts.

. . .

 _Knowhere, Fifth Sector, the Tanaleer Enclave_

Peter Quill craned himself back from where he hung onto the plas-reinforced rope, getting not much of a view above except Drax's broad butt and the wiggling Rocket as they forced the external access grate apart as best – and as slowly – as they could. With an impatient mutter, he wiggled again so he could look down at Gamora, dangling gracefully in midair with only the wispy veils of Knowhere's nebula visible far below. If he really swung his ass out, he might barely catch a peek of one of the Milano's neon points where it was hidden among some stony outcroppings.

She met his glance with a calm stare, tilting her head and cutting him off before he could complain about whatever was bothering him. "Quit fidgeting, Quill. You're making it difficult for Groot to keep us all stabilized."

The living tree, currently rooted along the exterior wall of the vast carved-out manse belonging to The Collector, muttered an affirmative "I am groooot." Tendrils from his feet dug into the ancient fossilized 'bedrock' of the dead head's flesh and bone. Bark-armored shoulders lifted in a more serene shrug, somehow not jostling the natural hooks he'd grown in the 'flesh' of his arms to keep their several climbing ropes secure. "I. Am Groot."

"It sucks that I'm starting to get his inflections. I mean, not sucks, but it's weird." Quill stopped fidgeting for the tree's sake. For about two seconds. He felt Gamora reach out a free hand to force the issue, feeling the twang of her grip ripple through the climbing gear and the safety attached to his belt. "Was this seriously the best way in? Whip our asses out to the winds of space so we can get in through the AC unit?"

"According to the best information money can buy, yes." Her answer was curt. "The security cycle in his support systems has a glitch in it we can use. Anything else, we get disintegrated by his protocols. We go in the front door, the game is blown. You know all this, Quill. Deal with it."

"Yeah, should have definitely bargained for a bigger slice of that money," Quill muttered, the sound coming through the air with a low trace of reverb from the odd but breathable atmosphere close around the immense skull. He raised his voice, looking for the bright side. "On the other hand, the new stuff on the Milano is a solid bonus. Assuming it works."

Rocket slung a beady glance down before going back to work on the grate with what looked like a Swiss army knife bigger than his arm. "Don't worry about it. It all works, I did the tweaking myself. We're good for a clean getaway when we done inside."

"Yeah, but, a new engine, the remote autopilot, and some sort of, what, camo rig? Tricky stuff, Rocket."

The mammal grunted and slid against Drax's shoulder for balance, suddenly truculent for whatever reason. He rolled with the changes like a hang-glider when Drax shifted, forgetting that he had his little claws dug in too hard while he thought. Loki's specifications had been particular and complicated. He'd done them all, though. Every point on the checklist neatly ticked. "Yeah, basically. I got, it though."

Quill looked down to Gamora. "Whatever. So, hey, while we're swinging dicks here, what's your real beef with that Loki guy? He pays every bill he owes, so, I got no dog in this race."

Her sharp green face stayed tight and her voice was terse. "It's not up for discussion, Quill. It's the past, let's leave it there. Focus on the now."

Quill took one hand off the rope to dangle down towards her, giving her his best sarcastic but sincere face. "I don't want to focus on the now, Gamora, because the now is completely idiotic. We're breaking into Tivan's place to steal another one of those super deadly magic space rocks for some crazy Asgardian dude _because apparently we didn't have enough of a good time with the last one!_ "

She stared stonily back at him without saying anything. His frustration aside, all it was was the truth.


	4. Journey Into Mystery

4\. Journey into Mystery

. . .

Strange's assistant gave a courtly sweep and pulled open the passenger door of the rental car when it finished parking in the bowered driveway of the Greenwich Village estate, bowing his head even lower as the girl stepped out. "Welcome back, mistress."

"As ever, thank you," said Death. She looked across the hood of the car to Loki as he was pocketing the keys. "You're certain you are ready for this step?"

"It no longer matters if I'm ready. There's only the duty and the plan, and it must both be completed." He finished fussing with the pockets of his black suit and looked back at her, his grey-green eyes serious and not a little tense. "Are Strange's preparations finished?"

"They are," came the elegant voice from just inside the side doorway. The fine profile of the sorcerer in his red cloak stepped into dappled sunlight; a day too pretty for unpredictable risks. "Complicated, but I've followed the good lady's directions to the letter. The journey is mapped. Of course, what we will find when we arrive, that remains the familiar unknown."

"And for good reason, Stephen," said Death. "But with me to guide, we'll find our feet easily enough." She sighed and shook her head. "Though even I must admit I have wished this day would never come. It is not for me to mark the way of the stones. I prefer to avoid their path, and that has been the safer act for a long, long time. I am convinced of the rightness of this course, however."

Loki frowned. "You've placed a lot of trust upon my notions. As much as I seek that acceptance, this is still some discomfort. The stakes are higher now."

She gave him a wry smile. "That trust paid off once before."

"That was the theft of some few books, a whimsy in a high and holy place. This is the theft of Time itself." He slammed the car door shut in emphasis. A second later, the black suit he wore was replaced with the slimly armored garb of green and gold and black leather that was a form of his heraldry. He adjusted the golden bracers at his wrists with unusually cold fingers, fidgeting by way of spending a little of that time while he could. "Is it concerning that I fear my own ideas?"

"I think it entirely natural. But for now, I believe in the plan. And in all of us." Death turned away from him to look to the sorcerer. "We're ready for the doorway."

. . .

In the sorcerer's grey, there are countless doors both seen and unseen. Not all of them open, and those that are sealed are often so for good and right reason. Doctor Strange ignored all these as he floated dreamlike in his lotus throne; the portals of unknown colors that led to universes so alien as to be hallucinogenic gliding by him and leaving their hazy trails through the ether like banners. He sought something deeper, something that did not want to be found. A lost second, a frozen heartbeat in an otherwise living universe. The keyhole.

In mundane space, the pair stood patient, waiting for the road to open to the place where Time slept. Death's now-shared secret; the one stone whose name and home She kept to herself, keeping it safe by staying as far away as possible and making the trail muddied and cold.

Loki stole a glance at her where she stood with her eyes closed and her hands clasped calmly together before her. In the wake of Asgard's near-disaster, he'd gone to her with the first wisps of a plan in mind and found her ready to listen. Six stones, many of them with locations known, mapped, and changed throughout millennia. Almost all at immediate risk of finding themselves in the warlord's hand.

When she gave him the first secret – that the Soul stone had long since been placed in Thanos's fist – his blood had seemed to thicken in his heart. In a way, he thought he might have known. The memories of the black time he lived at the warlord's knee were hazy, nightmarish and touched with all the things the Mind stone could do to those enthralled by an unscrupulous handler, but there were clues if he'd thought to seek them. He found he still could not, despite a use for the information. They were better in the past, the ghostly litter of a version of himself he hoped remained dead.

His dismay had shown clear on his face as she told him what she knew, and for whatever reason, that had bought him even more confidence from the eternal figure. She told him the other secret she had held for the entirety of her existence, the location of the hidden sixth gem. With that information, the wisps of his plan became something more firm. And so now, together, they waited for Stephen Strange to open the door to that hiding place. It would take all three of them to make it down the road, she explained. It was not that it was only difficult, but that it would be easy to become lost and frozen, trapped there until Thanos himself found a way to the stone via the others. Even she could be a victim there if she walked alone, and especially now, in her mortal shape. Three was safer. It was a good number, a stable number. And as both sorcerers understood, a magical number.

"I've found it," came the astonished whisper. "My Gods. By all the hoary hosts. You might have warned me. It's beautiful here. I'll never see anything like it again. One moment, I'll be able to pull you to the threshold."

Death smiled when Loki looked at her to explain. "The moment of birth."

"For what?"

"For everything. For me."

. . .

 _Frozen, brilliant white, the silence of the held breath, the light shattering and becoming matter, space, time. Everything that ever was or could be. In every particle was the full breadth of potentiality. It was the birth and death of Eternity, the alpha emergence to the omega point, the place where magic and science intertwined inescapably, all becoming possibility and the possibility giving rise to the countless futures._

 _Standing there in the place between, this sacred second where one universe had died to give rise to the new, the vastness spread before Loki like the stretching wings of the Phoenix. Distinctly, plainly in the back of his mind, he could hear the distant, irreverent voice of Daisy Johnson murmur in his ear as if she were with them and not just an intrusive, visiting thought cloaked in her voice. "This is some straight-up hardcore '2001: A Space Odyssey' BS, dude, you hear me? You see a monolith, don't freakin' touch it. You'll, like, become a space baby and everything will be weird forever."_

 _He shook his head once, sharply. It earned him a look from Mistress Death, but he decided it would be better not to explain. The action had done enough to ground him again in the now, the stray voice going back to the night he'd watched the film with her and a few of the others in a fit of real bemusement and vaguely intrigued boredom. Time flowed around them, leaving them untouched inside the secret bubble of this stolen moment. Beyond the crystalline borders of the sacred hollow that Strange had found, the universe continued on like the ocean. Loki lifted his head to examine the next impossible thing._

 _The world that hung before them; newborn, green, and, according all his lit-up, astonished senses, entirely aware yet also held within this dream/birth second and possessed of its own ego. A living planet, possessed of singular purpose. To be an aspect of life itself, and to be the sleeping keeper of Time._

 _Time had also come with them. The three flowed forward together on the river of Strange's displacement spell, rushing towards the rolling plains that draped across the face of the untouched world as stars began to move and twinkle newly beyond their safe bubble._

 _. . ._

Rocket was the perfect choice for a scout, assuming he could keep his motor-mouth muzzle in line. Subtlety was never his first choice, however, and he fidgeted constantly inside the narrow tubing of the atmospheric control systems. The sight of Tivan's personal security thronging through the inner lobby below his fragile perch was enough to keep him somewhat on point for a change. Fourteen guards of varying species from around the galaxy muttered and slumped their way through the area, clearly bored. Each one had a collar indicating his loyalty to The Collector, and each collar had a small disabler device attached to it to make damn sure of that loyalty.

The Collector took no chances on the safety of his personal treasures and placed no bets on the trustworthiness of mortal nature. There'd be even more of the goons circulating deeper inside the man's personal facility. What they'd seen back when trying to sell off the purple piece of trouble was just the tip of the flashy nut's resources. They were up against a lot more now. Rocket's black lips pulled back along white teeth as he looked the lazing squad over. He scuttled back, using his fat tail to baffle even more of the sound and making sure his black nails didn't scrape too hard against the steel interior.

"And?" said Quill, the moment he dropped back into the single blackout nook their stolen maps had identified.

"Ain't good. Ain't _bad,_ either, yet. But we gotta do this choreograph-like." He flashed a fang, hooked a claw into it to dig at the gums while he thought. "I can tripwire the guards no prob, buy us several minutes while they all slap at their necks and wonder what the hell happened with the bossman. By his twitchiness, I'd guess it happens once in a while to keep 'em on their toes. But once those minutes are up, boy, they gonna raise all unholy hell all over us. This ain't a run and gun job, and that's from me, the king of run and gun."

"I am Groot," came the sedate addition.

Rocket shrugged. "Yeah, we got a map. Map ain't as good as actually seein' the lay of the land, though, and map don't tell us where we gotta go. Gamora, you gettin' a read?"

She looked up from the small grid display. "Unusual energy signature, several degrees up and deep in. Probably his personal quarters."

"Probably stuck the rock on the end of the bed so he can jack while lookin' at it." Rocket snorted derisively. "Ain't that half of what these power grabs really wind up bein'?"

"I did not want to think about what Tivan does in his bedroom, thank you so much for that, Rocket." Quill pushed a hand through his snarl of hair, looking plainly grossed out. "Okay. So. Step one: Get within range of the stone before, step two: Getting the guards out of the way while, step one-point-five: Figuring out what kinda security he's got on the rock proper so that, step two-point-five: We can actually grab the thing. Step three: Get out without getting killed or seen, apparently pretty much in that order. I hate stealth missions."

"Listen to Mr. I Gotta Plan here. We don't got a plan anymore, Quill. Plan got us here, now we gotta figure the rest on the fly." Rocket laughed and jabbed Drax in his arm. "You been quiet, whatcha got?"

"The guards will not be deterred by their own chains long. Pointless. It would better to handle them plainly and with full force." The suggestion came out in a grim rumble.

"I agree," said Gamora. "Where I differ is I don't think it's necessary to kill them." She put down the display pad and swept her hand over it to show what she meant. "We can corral many of them neatly out of our way if we can hijack the security system – and according to everything we came in here with, we can. That leaves us with..." She pushed data around, calculating combat probabilities versus every detail Loki's supplied and stolen intel gave up about what they'd find further in. "Four, maybe five guards between us and the central personal quarters to dodge. We do it right, they'll scatter and we'll never even see them. Regardless, the fewer of them we have to deal with, the more time we have to grab the stone. Quill."

"Yeah?"

"Tivan's location. You said your informant had current intel?"

"Oh. Right." He fumbled in the pocket of his red leather coat for something, as if he'd completely forgotten his own addition to the heist. Rocket and Gamora shared an oddly tired and understanding look while he did so. He read something off the dirty flexible datapad. "So, the reason today was so great for this is he's sponsoring some sorta fancy art blowout about three levels down. The nice place just off the hangar there. Guess he wants to buy some prime pre-colonization sculptures or something. Rare stuff. Some sort of majesty chick just landed in the last half hour from their central empire."

"And he's there right now?" asked Gamora, trying to keep him on target instead of meandering all over with the pointless facts of Tivan's day planner. Something about that information seemed odd somehow, but she couldn't put a finger on what it was. She kept scanning the data.

"Yeah, definitely." He skimmed the update. "According to my guy, he's up in her grill doing the whole glad-handing thing to try and cut a better deal on the goodies."

There it was, the meandering. She kept her voice gentle, looking up at him. "That's not important, Quill. Do we have assurances he will be remaining away for at least the next hour?"

"Yeah, totally." He shrugged it off, always forgetting that when she used the gentle note, it meant she was actually mentally counting her knife collection. "It'll be no problem. In and out and no interruptions. He's busy being arty and shit."

. . .

The Collector all but purred, the cat welcoming the canary home. "My lady," he said, the words warm and sibilant in their unusual cadence. "Welcome... once more... to my own sanctuary. To Knowhere." He smiled, rubbery and broad, shifting casually under his furs as the Shi'ar noblewoman examined him cautiously with dark eyes in a sharp, dark face. A beautiful specimen of a standoffish species. Four years of courtship to get close to what he wanted. This was to be a glorious day. "It has been far too long since your last visit."

Not the illegal sculptures, of course. The sculptures, to Shi'ar, were a disgusting heresy. The products of a diseased mind, one that had opened itself to the lies of dreams. What he thought of that unusual position was irrelevant. They were interesting creations, of course. He would buy them if he could; little mysteries that looked within the avian people's strange and sealed psychology. He had another idea in mind to examine those far-ranging minds. Now she was here. Ready to be collected. He smiled again, as warmly as he could. Nothing of the box he had in mind showed on his face; a set of quarters as beautiful as the creature he meant to cage. She might not be pleased at first, but she would be comfortable while he studied her life and her mind.

"Tanaleer." The word was light and quick in her voice, touched with an almost birdlike trill from the hollow bones in her throat. "Let's be at business quickly. I do not care to regard the cargo overmuch; we have explained at great length what trouble these old artifacts are. You wish to buy them? Let us finalize, and me away home to my empire. The Empress will not regard my missing presence kindly if I overstay my welcome here." She turned away.

"It will be quick, but are you not interested in the fete? It is more than art... the art, my dear, is us. You." He tried to gain her attention back with a carefully chosen piece of the truth. The party was meaningless to him in the end, except as a social obligation. He would have paid three times as much simply to bait the lure, and what other guests had arrived knew his foibles well enough to be disinterested in the facts of whether or not he made an appearance himself. Her concentration was priceless.

"I am not interested in your revel," she said curtly.

He rallied. "Then of course, to your... comfort. That must be supreme." The words rolled soothingly from him. "I will be delighted to escort you to my own... demesne."

She shot another cautious, studious look at him.

"Away from prying eyes, of course. As my guest. As a matter of respect."

"Respect, Tanaleer." Her mouth pursed in a small, tight moue. "Very well. We will drink and we will talk and we will finish our business."

"Our business. Yes. Much will be completed today."

Something glinted in her eye, gimlet bright. "I have heard tell of your private collection. Not the gallery you keep off the main concourse, but the... the treasures of the universe. Is that true?"

Ah, there it was. Real curiosity, the thing that had trapped her interest and drawn her close to his net in the first place. He smiled and gave a deep, dramatic bow for full effect, his hand extended in offering. The Shi'ar had their own legends about the secrets of the universe – not merely the tale of the six stones and the immortals that watched over them, but the force that bound it all together. An eternal, renewing force. The rumors of the stone in his collection was irresistible, a flicker of proof for those old stories. "Of course it is true. I will be... honored... to show you them immediately."


	5. Putting Out Fires

5\. Putting Out Fires

. . .

"Don't drift away. Remain close. The world dreams in this frozen moment, and we may easily be set apart by new growth if you wander." Death gripped Strange's arm to complete her warning, the sorcerer's face taut with youthful, alert curiosity as he looked down a tangled path that cut into a deep, rich forest of new and impossible trees. "I know what you sense."

"Something more than power," he murmured, looking back to see Loki following her command and remaining near to both of them.

"This world is alive; it has a soul, an ego, a drive to exist. No name yet, but an identity to hold its anchor. The longer we tread, the more likely it is it will stir awake – and I don't know what will occur when it does. It may be kindly and help us complete our task, or it may set us on the wrong path and watch us drown amidst itself with Time forever out of our grasp."

"It won't respond to you as kin?" Loki lifted his head to examine the far blue horizon, where jagged crystalline mountains broke through the sky.

"I don't know, Loki. I haven't been here since the universe was created; it saw me in the glimpse of that burst, our new lives created then. For all I know it regards me as a nightmare haunting the darker corners of its rest. Much of life does." Death frowned. "Yet there is the irony. Now that we have come and outside time with us, the world may awaken. And when it does, and our duty here complete, it may finally begin to live its full life amongst the universe. To see and experience what it may."

"So if it questions us as it stirs, I advise perhaps stressing that as a positive." Loki sounded dourly amused.

"Unless it has liked its long slow silence and would prefer to sustain it. Dreams are their own powerful enchantment." Strange shot the words back, not in hostility but only a challenging viewpoint.

Loki lifted long white hands in a dramatic shrug. "Well, standing here isn't going to resolve the issue. I suppose we'd best explore our options. Now, if you were a dreaming planet, Strange, in what odd little nook of yourself would you jam an impossibly powerful rock?"

Strange turned to regard him, the tight lips within the dark goatee showing that he was fairly sure the small god had just implied something rude to him. "Here I thought we were getting along better for once."

"I'm not above the occasional bit of cheap banter among friends, acquaintances, and people I might occasionally picture on fire." Death gave him a cold look for his light tone. He shrugged again, this time a touch more sheepishly. "Oh, what? It's how I handle stress. I pick on everyone. Ask Coulson. He'll explain at _length_."

"I might mention the planet will sense that stress and your dour nature, and may respond in kind. Remember that, whatever comes. Our reactions will matter."

Loki paused, considering that. "You just want to ensure I behave while I'm here with both you and your... landlord." That got him another sharp glance from the sorcerer supreme.

"It would _help._ " She sighed to soften the chiding, turned away to examine those same far mountains of blue ice and new, strange glass. "The usual instinct to protect involves ferrying things away, clutching them close to the core of the self. The tops of the mountains, then, may well not be the first place to look. Strange? Could you gain a better perspective, find, perhaps..." She considered, her face closed as she searched her own instincts and half-gone memories. "A river just now beginning to flow, perhaps. A place of deep caves. The symbols of birth and womb and running life. And ice, if the symbolism carries out. Look far, I doubt we've landed so close to where we need to be."

"Madame," he said by way of answer. His red cloak fluttered as he suddenly hovered with his eyes shut, his mind reaching further up for that better vantage. Now and then his lips moved as he channeled search-spells and harnessed other methods of magical cartography.

Long moments passed, while Loki looked to his side and found a close rock to lean properly on. He clasped his long hands together as his hip found a comfortable enough place to wedge itself and watched the other pair at work searching the land around them in ways seen and unseen. His own work would come later, so he found no shame in a moment's laziness.

Atop the mountains, a second moon began to rise. He watched it for a while, wondering how Rocket and his companions were faring on the other side of the galaxy – if not the universe.

. . .

Quill almost banged his head on the conduit hanging low over his head, jerking back abruptly at the soft sound and the vibrating tingle against his thigh. He swore instead, forgetting he was also waiting for a message while he finished soldering one of the gate controls into place. Once the gates went down, they weren't coming back up. Theoretically. He fumbled the comm out of his pocket and stuck it under his masked chin, still working and trying to not distract himself hard enough to melt off a thumb. He could still smell the molten metal through his rig; the glare of the welder dimmed automatically by the optics. "Yeah?"

Gamora. All business, even as she sounded tinny and distant in his ear. " _We're on the mark. How are the controls looking?"_

"I got 'em, no problems. They'll be jammed up nice and solid by the time you guys start herding the troops out of our way."

 _"_ _They have to be, Quill, or they're going to wind up herding us."_ The tension was plain in her voice. Under the tone was something else. Worry? Fear?

He stuck the plasma iron carefully aside, swapping the comm to the other side of his chin. "It's cool, I got it, it's okay." Silence answered him. "What's bothering you?"

 _"_ _You're certain we're not going to have a problem with Tivan coming back early?"_

"Shouldn't. I mean, I don't know squat about the Shi'ar or whatever, but I know a lot about parties. He's got all this money to throw the best ones. Him and her and all his buddies are gonna be busy talking about, I don't know, Space Impressionism. Whatever soup can prints are like for these guys. I'm not gonna frig up this Loki guy's big gig, Gamora. Rocket'll never let me hear the end of it if I screw up his meal ticket. We're getting the stone." More silence. "Gamora?"

. . .

Her hand squirmed around the comm device, knuckles painfully tense as she watched the unique heat signature of Tivan Taneleer slowly approaching the Collective's estate on her monitor. _I should have asked for clarification. I should have been clear. This is going to be my fault. The fool didn't know._ "Shi'ar artwork, Quill? That's what you tried to say earlier? Tivan has a majestrix selling him art?" Her voice was dead cold, less angry with him and his lack of useful knowledge than with herself.

 _"_ _Yeah, why?"_

"The Shi'ar find art disgusting. They're not going to hang out at a gallery showing. They would, quite literally, rather die."

 _"_ _Okay, then, they'll ditch the crap, take their money, and leave. Who cares, he's still throwing a big deal party. The little sandwiches alone probably cost more than my ship, he's not going to waste that unless he's nuts. If I could think of a way, I'd go down there and freeload before scooting."_

"You said, and I believed you, that this was the dominant reason for the event. This deal. This seller. This majestrix."

 _"_ _Yeah, and?"_

She focused on the smaller, lighter heat signature approaching alongside Tivan; a being closer to cold-blooded and decidedly feminine in her gait and posture. "So he's focused on her, Quill. He's interested in the art dealer, not the art. And he is absolutely more than a little unbalanced."

 _"_ _That's a hot detective jump."_ He was being clearly sardonic, the words drawling. She could practically hear his head moving in that annoying manner he had.

"It's a much smaller jump when you see what I'm seeing. They're coming back here, Quill. We don't have ten minutes. We have maybe four max if we're lucky and the elevators in the hangar go slow." She used her calmness to get across how dire that news was.

 _"_ _...Ah, shit."_

"I'm getting Rocket online. We're going into action in ninety seconds. Spot-weld what you can and get into position." She cut the comm off without bothering to hear what he had to say about that, hoisting herself up as fast as she could to run flat out down the long inner hall towards Drax. At least he would be ready for abrupt and terrible violence, if need be.

. . .

Rocket dug his nails into Drax's thigh as the giant of a man grimaced down at the chitinous armor plating that threatened to cut off circulation at various joints. Gamora was already down the hall, strapped into her own disguise. "We _cannot_ be seen out of armor, you hearin' me, Big Stuff? That is the entire point of the job. Either we don't get seen at all, which is how _I_ gotta roll it, or we play dress-up. You ditch that helmet, I'ma do this thing where I crawl into yer mouth, slip down the hatch, and drag your guts out like I'm flossin' ya." He let go and slapped at the shin guard for emphasis. "We good?"

"Tiny mammal, I will heed. But know this; you grab my leg like that again and we shall come to a great reckoning." Drax moved away and into Gamora's wake, clearly uncomfortable with the way the borrowed gear fit him.

"Whatever." Rocket slapped at the expensive rig on his tiny wrist, making sure it worked without actually draining the charge. Once activated, he had up to eighty seconds of reactive camouflage that would defy nearly every single scanner in the local grid. Pricey toy. Glad he hadn't paid for it out of his own stash. He looked up at Groot's patient black eyes, jerking his thumb up for a hoist. "Okay," he yelled down the hall once he was settled on the broad bark shoulders. "We ready if you are."

Gamora's face filtered back around the corner for a second, most of it obscured inside the filthy black helmet. Scraps left over on Earth from the Chitauri invasion, collected by SHIELD and given over to them for this job by Loki himself. Rocket had a suspicion what the nut was up to when the crate was first delivered, nearly crapped when he'd laid out his framework for the Knowhere heist to both Rocket and Gamora on the logic that this pair would run the operation better than deferring to Quill. In for a credit, in for the whole planet at this point.

The nut's ideas had a bad tendency to work out. Rocket hoisted a gun damn near the size of himself up to his shoulder, white fangs peeking out form his muzzle just in case he had to back up the first charge. When Gamora snapped the go-alert, the fangs came out further in a wide grimace as Groot charged through the shadows of the steel corridor.

. . .

Hot sweat dropped into Quill's left eye inside the faceplate. He blinked it away without thinking, focused on getting the last few spot-welds done before the facility's klaxon started to go. His mind played through Gamora's plan. Once he knew they were starting, his job was to scoot away from this location and juke over to the floor above the Collector's rooms for a rendezvous. Worst case scenario, he might be able to palm the stone directly without imploding. Like last time, because that had been just so much fun. Best case, the Liberace-looking weirdo might have it in a display box he could just stuff under his arm.

Two minutes gone. Gamora would have started her action thirty seconds ago. He ate a loose second, touched up another weld as he waited for the signal. And waited. "Okay, come on, we gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go," he breathed into the mask, feeling real worry start to crawl in.

As if on cue, the speaker in his faceplate crackled alive. _"Quill? Go."_

He jerked upright and dropped the welder without ceremony, barely bothering to turn off the flame first. As he moved, he heard the distant yells of startled guards fill the hall. The welds better hold. Otherwise he'd find out who killed him first – Taneleer's guards, or Gamora. "On my way!"

. . .

The first thing the guards saw was the largest screaming Chitauri warrior they'd seen in their lives, and due to Taneleer's style of often illicit business with even more illicit people, they'd seen a few. This one was well over six feet tall and screaming gray murder at them through a sealed helm loud enough to crash reverb through the halls. The beast's hands were full of sharp objects and a more lithe warrior followed close behind with a purple-beamed pulse rifle that looked like it was made out of the spine of an unknown animal in its hands. It could have been just the two of them. There could have been an army close behind. The guards didn't care. They took one look at what seemingly appeared out of nowhere to kill them, and as a single-minded mass they began to shove each other in a panic down the hall to the kit-out station where they could arm and regroup as they'd been trained.

The enormous warrior was waiting for none of this to happen. A bladed fist caught a straggler's upper arm, pulsing bluish-green blood from the wound to strike the wall. The wounded guard sped up in a mindless, panicked drive to save himself, ducking a shot from the other warrior and hauling fast enough to start catching up with the front line.

Someone from the front yelled something unintelligible. Probably the standard order to drop the gates behind them to slow the advance and so the herd of startled, frightened guardsmen did what they could to put more distance between the pack and their attackers. Stray shots spanged off the metal walls, each one causing more clatter throughout the facility. Soon it would draw more backup to them, and the klaxons began to sound throughout more of the halls to warn of what was going on. None of it deterred the pair of warriors. Purple laser fire caught one guardsman, then another in lucky shots high on arms and shoulders. Not enough to slow them, but each shot scared them further.

It never occurred to them that the smaller Chitauri might be shooting precisely to wound. That simply wasn't the race's mode of operation. When they got to sanctuary, the gates finished screeching down into place. The rear guard spun with a whirl as the sounds of chaos began to fade.

That's when they realized the pair of warriors was somehow gone. Tivan Tanaleer's hired guards looked uncertainly at each other while the squad leaders started unpacking specialized ordinance with stony faces. One of them finally ventured the question everyone was thinking. "So what do we tell the boss?"


	6. Et in Arcadia Ego

6\. Et in Arcadia Ego

. . .

Tivan said nothing in response to his comm, a tiny and almost invisible muscle twitching and jumping high on his jaw close to his ear. Sweat began to pool at his temples, the only other sign of his distress, damping down the brilliant white bouffant hair as he contemplated the news his idiotic squad of goons had just given him. The Shi'ar majestrix eyed him as he did so, and he felt certain that her gaze did not leave the damp sheen on his forehead. He smiled anyway to try and recover the situation, fake emotion sliding across his face like plastic. He cut off the comm.

"Trouble, Taneleer?" It came out as near a chirp. Was she enjoying this?

"A... terribly minor issue, my dear. Vermin," he said, ignoring her tone. The words themselves were functionally true in his estimation. "Nothing that will affect... our planned afternoon."

She lifted her chin in something like a challenge as the comm buzzed again in his hand. He resisted the urge to press it to pieces as she spoke again. "Persistent vermin."

"Hirelings are." He tilted his head slightly at his own joke. "A moment please... indulge my need to address matters more... personally."

The majestrix flicked her hand at him dismissively. Him! He ate it and smiled again, this time seemingly more sincere while feeling a white heat begin to flicker to life at the back of his throat. He stepped away several paces and activated the comm. His voice was low and dangerous, pitched only for the mercenary guards in his service. "Thanos would not _dare,_ not after our previous dealings. Not with _me_. Tell me again... you believe it is Chitauri."

 _"_ _Visual confirmation sir. We've got burn damage from their weapons. We'll do a proper analysis once we've got the situation contained."_ The line fell into silence for a moment, the hireling's voice on the edge of sheepish. _"It's like they came out of nowhere."_

The heat at his throat spread into his mind, tingling along the meat and blood, making him feel like his eyeballs were squeezing themselves into almost myopic frustration at what that implied. The Space stone in Thanos's control, at his beck and call. First that useless little world, now an assault under his own roof. "That is secondary. Regroup and ensure my goods are protected!"

Dead silence on the line. The flame flickered higher inside his mind. "Well?"

 _"_ _Sir, we're at 10% effectiveness. We got caged by a... by a surprise surge attack. Must have melted the gate controls in the firefight; engineers are just starting to look at it. We're mobilizing what we can to protect B-3-"_

"Not the containment floor, you fools! My own quarters! That's what they want!" He rang off abruptly, feeling his breath become ragged as his thoughts whirled. Chitauri. Here. Daring to take a stone for their master without proper payment or arrangement. A red veil dropped across his vision, painting the steel bolted floors and the antique carpets draped across them in the blood of his mind's eye.

"Containment floor?" The majestrix narrowed her eyes at him, curious. A poor semantic choice on his part, a slight mistake drawn out of him by his anger. The word implied volatility, power, imprisonment. None of this was lost on her, who was secretly fated for that part of his facility and home. That beautiful corner, wooded well and filled with things that would show his care for her ascetic nature. Natural tacticians and warriors in their stoic, simple environment, her people. Even as a politician, she would be no different. Her voice became silky, mocking that fate without knowing it plainly. "Your troubles seem quite involved, Taneleer. I think I will wait at my ship for your situation to resolve." A shrug, relaxed in how it insulted him. "And it may be I will simply have to depart if it isn't quite soon. I have other situations that need my attention."

The red veil became bloody crimson. This was not the day he'd planned; a pleasant visit ending in her being sealed into the cells and the later arrangement of an accident in the deep space beyond Knowhere. One that would utterly destroy her ship and all evidence that she still lived. He kept his voice soothing, pitching low for extra charm. "My la-"

She smiled as if she could somehow see his carefully controlled infuriation, seen the trap laid for her in some motion of his face or some stray scrap of tone. She knew her continued freedom was for her own taking, plucked it from him easily. "No, there's simply nothing to be done for it," she said. She turned away to go, implacable.

Damn her, then. And his guardsmen, too. There would need to be a full replacement when the situation was over. He would see to it.

Tivan Taneleer whirled away from the departing woman in a flurry of garish silks and furs and ire, quickening his pace towards his home.

 _. . ._

"Nice, you didn't even have to drop one of the emergency 'we screwed up' plans into action." Rocket breathed the compliment to the jogging pair of warriors as his hands finished cutting through the thin grate that separated one floor from the Collector's private rooms. The other flaw in his system that Loki had found – the Collector was particular about the sense of free-flowing air, and so the floor above had a number of fortified but otherwise potentially useful places in between the two levels that could be exploited. Sure, it took a laser cutter spliced haphazardly with a superhot conductor and a user with a somewhat more deranged view of their own life choices, but Rocket had both of these things in his dubious favor.

Next to him, Quill was shifting his weight from one foot to the other. With the brief downtime, just in case, he'd gotten in costume as well. If the Chitauri had nervy teenagers, his fidgeting would have cleanly sold the idea of them. "We got maybe seconds before they figure out they're not getting out the easy way. When they decide to do it the hard way, it's gonna get interesting."

"You tellin' me?" Rocket didn't pause in what he was doing, ducking as Groot tried to help shield his furry face from flying sparks. A nice sentiment. Shame he was just as flammable. He spared a paw to gently smack the branching hand away from the barely controlled cutter in his other hand. "They move, I pop the collars they got. Last ditch effort, it'll buy a few more seconds."

Gamora's voice came out of the blackish grey helmet. "Any idea yet what's inside?"

"Bein' that _he lives in there,_ I'm thinkin' it's not laser tripwires every two inches and killer robots and toxin gas. Stone itself probably got some countermeasures on it but the room oughta be clean. He's got an ego and he likes other people doin' his stuff; he's gonna roll cozy if he can. He don't think anyone gets this close. Now, I can get in and look before we pull it just to be sure, but I got eighty seconds to do it in to keep inside the job rules and still cut whatever he does have. Better if one of you takes the heat, drops in, and reports back to me."

"That will also sell this filthy charade that much better, to see us in these stolen rags," said Drax in a rumble. "Am I correct?"

"He complains, but he gets it." The metal creaked. Groot reached past his shoulder and sent his ensnarling vines and tangling wood silently into the gaps and crevices, keeping the junked metal from falling in a clatter. It would make it easier to quickly spot-weld it back into place when they were done. Groot pulled it up with a single hard yank, tearing it the rest of the way out of the floor. "Thanks, bub."

"I am Groot," said Groot graciously. The broad wood face lifted up and looked around the room, settling on Gamora when a smile when she stepped forward. She looked back at him with a nod. "I. Am Groot."

"I'll be in and out in ten seconds." She dropped her datapad in front of Rocket to show him. "Not much more than that. We've upset his date night and he's well on his way to give his opinion about it."

"Damn near joggin'." Rocket shoved the pad aside with a distracted grunt. "Aight, show me what we're dealin' with. Let's hope it ain't much. Time ain't exactly been on our side at any point on this happy trip."

"Is it ever?" asked Quill.

Rocket snorted. "Let's hope it gets with _somebody's_ good side 'fore all this is over."

. . .

Doctor Strange handled the jumps; short tesseracts of magical displacement that took the trio carefully across a thousand miles of empty plains and still frozen trees. At each landing he left a scrap of power to map his way, a breadcrumb trail of magic to help ensure they would not be turned around or to light beacons should the sleeping world somehow stir and split their small group apart in its confusion and anger. He himself floated in two; his body with the group in a posture of lotus relaxation, his astral self alive and all but surrounding them as the narcotic dream of ethereal travel drew a lingering smile out of him.

Except when Loki shot his astral dreamself the occasional sardonic look, meeting that counterpart's eyes dead on with a fellow sorcerer's unimpressed gaze. Impossible colors flowed along the Sorcerer Supreme's form as they traveled, and through their gathering wisps he whispered into Loki's pale ear the only thing he could bother to muster the energy for in a distraction. _"Brat."_

"That's _royal brat_ to you," said Loki faux-cheerfully as they paused atop a high plateau of sheer green and umber cliffs that drew down again into the almost unending plains. The horizon seemed impossibly distant, hazy under a light blue sky. Death elbowed him once, sharply. "Regardless of that, are we growing any closer to the power you sensed while scouting?"

"We are not," said Strange, combining his two selves together and stirring from his lotus pose. He stood up and went to the edge of the plateau, regarding that distant haze with resignation. "What does that tell you?"

Loki looked down at Death's arched brown eyebrow. "That the planet stirs as we travel. Perhaps it studies us already." He looked up at Strange's back. "The trails you left in case of trouble?"

The answer was expected. "Already gone."

"Ruddy fast work." Loki sighed and settled himself down on the soft grass where still no breeze rustled through it, as comfortable as he could get under the circumstances. "Nothing is ever that easy, is it?" He looked up to see what Strange might have to say about that idle remark and sighed again, utterly unsurprised. The silence was his answer – not only to the question spoken, but to the riddle of the world's current state of mind.

Both of his companions had disappeared. In their place, a soft touch of warm, somehow almost curious wind began to whistle through the long grass around him.

. . .

 _Consciousness is not a spark, it is a wave of sensation that spills across every inch of the world's surface like a body built from the inside out – from bone to blood to flesh until the newly awakened being was whole and regarding this new intruding infection of life speckled sparsely across its skin with tickling alertness. With a roll of the surface, an understanding of its own reality, the three were set apart to examine more carefully. Curiosity and fear roiled through the pits and cracks of the world's surface, a baby's half-formed first emotions. For curiosity alone it did not simply strike out. For fear, it chose to look carefully at each of these interlopers._

 _"I am," whispered the world to itself, and these words were the first breeze across the green plains, brushing across the face of the man in black who the world let sit alone upon the once-still plateau. He looked up, not hearing the words but feeling the import of them as the wind rose to carry itself further across the face of the waking world. The man was presently not a threat, and so the consciousness strode on to examine the other two, the white breath of wind and life rising high._

 _The other man, who stood now atop a mountain with gentle curiosity to match the world's own. Unafraid, and wholly aware of his place – if not amidst this world, but among all the pinpoints of life in the universe. The living world saw him plain and knew him for a kind of mirror of the first man. Two creatures of magic who played at maintaining their opposing natures but were not as different as they seemed. This one was also no threat as he stood with his palms pressed together in meditation and patience both, and so the world looked elsewhere for the third._

 _There it found Her waiting for its audience, standing placidly at the edge of the desert, a piece of itself the world decided would be desolate and safe enough, where no trace of life otherwise yet stirred. Save for its own spreading sense of self. The girl's head lifted to regard the open sky and its gathering clouds and she smiled easily in a brown, living face._ "You are afraid," _she said as the wind gently flicked at the brocade silk hooded around her tightly knotted black hair._ "You do not need to be. Today I come as a friend. Today I come as Life."

 _That is not your nature, said the wind in the silent language of the world, now convinced of the rightness of its fear. It knew her real name, smelled it in her hair and saw it in her aura. Remembered the first time it had seen her, in a way only moments ago._

"I have reliably proven that the living can change. Only the living, and so I wear life itself to prove this out once more. Because we must change to survive." _The girl stretched her hand up to the sky, hearing the newborn world plainly._ "We were given trust once, I and my kin and my descendants. Our predecessors. And you, though you were not asked for consent. As the universe flourished into life, you were held within and without Time, imprisoned to be guardian and gatekeeper. I come to free you, to give you back the existence you were not granted then."

 _Within itself, the world felt the weight of that 'trust,' a power that radiated out even as bacteria did not grow, as pollen did not yet fly on the world's breath. Still stuck on the final cusp of asleep and awake and unsure of its own desires. For the first time almost free of that buried stone's power. Questions bubbled as magma under the world's surface._

 _Do you come to give or to take, then? For this freedom you claim to offer comes at the price of the trust I/We/All were burdened with. Whether or not this was a choice, it is here to be borne. It is identity._

"One accomplishes the other. Let the burden come with me, with my friends. In exchange, the universe becomes yours for your mind and self to explore. This is offered freely, with no trickery or weight added out of your sight. I cannot help the fear of change, change of self and of possible futures, and I have brought the patron of no small few of those changes with me. But I can tell you that change is also a joy. You might see this for yourself, given chance."

 _In time, you will return, said the world, doubting again._

"And perhaps by then you will have learned more of what I am, and will understand what that fear of me truly means. It will not be soon – should we take the stone laid here and succeed in our task, that is." _Her smile was rueful at the certainty and concern in the world's whisper, when there were still clear uncertainties in her own path._ "My hopes are plain, but I must not lie, either. It is dangerous; what we do, the fate of what we seek here. But it is better than the other choice. To wait for another to come, who will wrest what you hold from you with violence and force my spirit to return too soon to watch your fall. I am sorry, but these are the two futures we see likeliest in the hours to come. I walk in kindness when I walk freely and that one would see us chained."

 _She smiled gently to soften the import of her words._ "This is our chosen road, a gamble placed on another's changes. This is the hope I can give. Before I return again, should we succeed, you will live. A lifetime, nothing more. Nothing less."

 _The world held in stillness, the wind held back and the first clouds stilled in the sky as the superheated core sloshed in consideration. Across its surface, it felt the two sparks of life, those two men stir, watching the horizon for any change that might grant a clue as to the world's decision. Curiosity won out over fear. It sensed a great and vast universe beyond the place where it had been hidden. It would be interesting to go and see._

 _It... is good, said the world, who knew itself so far only as I and We and the old word Ego, and it plucked the three up from its surface to take them close to where the hidden power thrummed through frozen time and along its living soil and skin. It knew a thing, watching the girl's face, that girl who was Death._

 _The newly awakened world knew the road to come for some of these small lives was a long and risky one._


	7. Let's Dance

7\. Let's Dance

. . .

The first alert was oddly anticlimactic, a red LED light flickering alive on a console that Leo Fitz kept an eye on while studiously trying to work in the lab and not fret at the hours to come. He saw it snap bright once, then twice. Before it could gleam a third, he set the tablet in his hands down with a clatter and smacked at the intercom to get the Director on the line immediately. "Sir? Probes are online."

 _"_ _They got a read."_

"They did, sir," said Fitz as he worked the console to tell it to feed him streaming atmospheric data from the target location. "No sign of the flagship. Whatever just made entry into local space, it may be what we were hoping for in comparison. First strike."

 _"_ _Keep it updated, jack in to Stark's feed. Make sure he's awake."_ Coulson sounded wry. They both knew that for this, the Iron Man was still firing on all cylinders. Probably just bought out an energy drink company for a steady supply line, with a granola bar corporation for a side dish. _"The moment you get entry locations, let me know."_

"Is-is the Corp set up?"

 _"_ _Yeah, masking signatures out there in low orbit. Rael's prepped to go to live updates with me when the Chitauri – or the other unfriendly grey dudes, whatever – engage on our turf. They're ready to help cut the damage, but we're gonna need to get Avengers in the air and whatever else we can throw out to baffle the first line quick. When they get into the fray, they'll tap in with you."_

That meant more updates for him to track, as planned. Fitz nodded as he listened to the director continue on for a moment, noting a change in high atmosphere temperatures along the southwestern coast of the States. He bit his lip when another anomaly formed over northeastern Africa, and then the Pacific Ocean. He accessed the command line that fed into Stark Tower before interrupting the director's muttered checklist. "Sir, we're twenty minutes before estimation and entry locations are coming in _now_. Already going into motion here, I've got to get busy."

 _"_ _...So much for screwing around. Okay, keep on that. My turn to get to work."_ Coulson rang off without any other fanfare. Fitz immediately forgot about him, watching the temperature anomalies change and spread as he watched the complex math that showed the angles of unnatural incoming trajectories begin to scroll across his monitors. Almost any moment now, the lead pilot from the first Nova Corp squad was going to check in with them for more intel. He wanted to be able to give everything he could.

. . .

Tony Stark ignored the latest data push from Friday. He'd actually read the first four promptly, but currently he was too busy slamming down his third orange soda energy crush and kicking with an unusual amount of hyperness at the closest Iron Man floor bay because it wouldn't unload his suit fast enough. He looked up at the shadow that drew itself over his shoulder, a figure drawn tall and broad in the doorway of Tony's personal lair and hobbyshop. "Showtime, kids."

"Wouldn't call this a show, Stark," said Rogers, less enthused. "SHIELD's got a Quinjet landing up top right now, ready to dust off again once we load. We're taking the coastline first. They got something else cooking over the ocean, and then there's Wakanda's piece of the sky to watch over."

Stark nodded. "SHIELD sent them a diplomatic brief. Who's coming with?"

"You. Me. Romanoff. Barton. Wilson. Maximoff. Quin's got a couple aboard to help us out, folks that I don't know. Maybe you do. Morse on pilot's stick, and Johnson. Vision is staying here for logistical support with SHIELD's people back at their hole-up, his choice. Thor's doing something similar. We're getting support from multiple external angles, too. Won't be up there alone for long." Stark heard the pause. "I saw firsthand in the war what alien technology could do in human hands. I've seen since what alien technology can do in _alien_ hands. And somehow, I'm still not ready to see what friendlies are gonna look like at this new angle. Isn't a briefing in the world that's capable of preparing me for intergalactic war on this level."

"From what I hear, lots of 'em look pretty much like us. Weirdly enough." The red alloyed legs clamped into place around his body, followed by more pieces traveling up his torso and ultimately sealing his face in. He turned with a soft clunk, the golden faceplate cocked curiously at the soldier. "Thor doesn't freak you out?"

Steve was quiet, his hands clasped on the top rim of the red, white, and blue vibranium shield where it rested against the floor front of him. A defensive, thoughtful posture. The one the Smithsonian exhibits liked to display him in the most. "Guess I don't really think about him as an alien."

"But his kid bro? The space freak war criminal? We never had a problem thinking about him as the outsider. Still. Came from the same place, took his own path. Situation wasn't much different than some of our world's hijinks, you get down to it."

"Considering how I never heard about any of that alien war criminal's new life until today, Stark, yeah. Same conniving, same unsettling tactics, same dramas." Rogers allowed a small smile, keeping the jab at a stage less than hostile but getting across that he still wasn't happy about how he'd been finally pulled into the intel loop. "I suppose you have a point."

"Touche." The suit pulled itself into a dramatic shrug, the only kind Stark could do. Whether he was inside the suit or not. "Anyway. Phil's got a good crew these days. They'll be great backup. Let's go LARP a round of Space Invaders with 'em and you can get introduced."

"...LARP?"

The look on Steve's face suggested this was not a military acronym he'd ever heard before, much less that he had any awareness that it wasn't military-related. That got a grin out of Stark, the delighted expression hidden inside the metal helmet. "Jot it down in your Capsicle notebook and I'll explain on the way."

. . .

Quill almost immediately dropped the clear case when the temporarily cloaked Rocket finished detangling the seventh and final security rig in the base of its pedestal, a move that would have looked badly out of character for the fully armored 'Chitauri.' Inside, the Reality stone – once known by distant Asgard as the Aether – sloshed its incoherent red self along the sealed glass. Sometimes a solid, sometimes that unsettling, hypnotic liquid, always potentially dangerous. Quill found the damned thing weird as hell and decided he already hated it as much as Ronan's piece of chunky fun. "It's not my fault," he hissed under his breath, sensing the dirty look he was almost certainly getting. "You want me to act like I'm the one killing the alarms to cover for your invisible ass, AND grab the damn thing, I'm gonna slip a little."

"Shut. Up," hissed Rocket, so low it sounded like a tiny rasp from a drinking straw. To drown both sources of noise and to show his impatience with them both, Drax grunted low and deeply. It came out with an almost insectoid rattle through the helmet wrapping around his face. Quill felt the little guy rustle past him, followed by a tiny clatter as he somehow made it back up through the ceiling.

When Rocket was back above with his little raccoon-like face now peeking visibly down at them with real annoyance, Drax wasted a few seconds sniffing around The Collector's private rooms. He was muttering to himself. A booted foot reached out to kick furniture out of position, leaving scuff marks and more than a little real visible damage on expensive woods and porcelain thingamabobs. A waste of precious time, and petty to boot, but also oddly in character as a possible message from Thanos. For Drax, however, it was more a missive _to_ Thanos. No sweetheart mash note, either. Quill didn't say anything to him at first, letting him smash around the place while he made sure they had their exit strategy in place.

Drax's little moment of catharsis wasn't what they had come here for, though, so after a moment of sharing facial expressions with Rocket, Quill made a little series of clicks with his tongue to get Drax's attention back on the job of leaving with the goods while they could. He jerked his head towards the exit in the ceiling with a grunt, hoping it sounded 'normal' enough for whatever the hell the grey freaks did when talking sports among themselves.

The real trick was going to be trying to make it look like they'd left without a trace. That would depend on Rocket's call. Doing his best to not fumble again, Quill reached out a gloved hand to beckon Drax close to him while Rocket fussed above. According to Gamora's initial scan when she'd dropped into the room first, there were slices of the room that didn't get quite as good security feed coverage as the rest. Using them and hoping for a feed splice from Rocket's assault on the internal networks should finish this part of the 'illusion' that the plan called for. He tried to back into one of those blind spots close to the hole they'd cut above, waiting patiently for Rocket's thumb's-up to let them know they could pull out.

The klaxons started a new pattern as Rocket finished whatever he was doing. From where he stood, Quill couldn't take the chance to yell at the little guy and find out what happened. Either the security splice glitched out on Rocket, or The Collector was finally taking control of the scene. Seized by a weird hunch and a need to fidget, he looked up and ululated a croaking, cackling victory noise instead. Well, _he_ thought it sounded sort of alienish.

It had the side effect of drawing Groot's head into the open space above to stare down at him with the clearest look of raw bafflement available on a tree. Rocket's furry face appeared next to the wooden one right after. "Get up here now, ya d'ast frickin' weirdo! He's here. I gotta get this grate back into place 'fore he swishes his fancy ass onto this floor! And yes, I got the sound looped out, too, so don't gimme any crap for screamin' atcha."

Quill ripped off his helmet before letting Drax help him up, the glass box tossed gently up to Gamora's waiting hands. She took off immediately with a nod to Rocket. Quill ignored her departure, preferring to let out the complaints he'd been holding in. "Good! I hate this job, this rock that is not acting like a rock is freaking me out, and this armor smells like dead alien nuts!"

"Ya whiner. Think of the _money_ you stand to get from wearin' it. And the chance to maybe survive this whole damn shitshow and someday spend that money." The sharp black talon of Rocket's thumb jerked down the hall. "Gamora's gonna have the ship warmed up and the autopilot programmed by the time we halfway there. Let's haul, Star-Walker."

"Star- _Lord_."

"No one cares, man."

"I _am_ Groot."

. . .

Tivan Taneleer's hands gnarled against his personal console, watching the footage from what seemed to be just seconds ago continually loop before his red-tinted vision. Chitauri. In his own quarters. He could all but smell their deathlike stench still hovering over his things, trapped in the scars and damage the beastly one had left behind; the aroma of the color grey as itself incarnate. He felt a fingernail attempt to peel free from its mooring as he slowly scraped and clawed at the metal, watching almost mindless with rage as the creatures pull their prize – _his_ prize - free from the pedestal with cunning quickness, watched them disappear back to whatever hellscape Thanos and his Space stone had hidden them in. Jumping out just for show.

His breathing came in slow, soft rasps, stilling when the footsteps came close, hesitant.

"Sir? We've tracked the departure of a ship. Just a trace, a hidden vessel on the other side of the estate."

His breathing was the only answer.

"Clear Chitauri signature, no visual. We think it may have been a backup vessel. It... it disappeared from our scanners after less than a second." Soft. Frightened.

"He's rubbing my nose in it. He can do whatever he likes." The words were almost silent. "So he thinks."

"There was... ah.. another track log made. The... the Shi'ar vessel you wanted us to monitor has left Hanger 113-8."

The fine white-furred sleeve of his garish robe hid the impact point of Taneleer's fist from view as it connected with the fragile display monitors before him. They cracked instantly, their looping images torn asunder into fritzing snowstorm grey before the system blacked out. His voice rose. "You. Are released from contract."

"Sir?"

"You will be sent below for processing. Warehouse floor. Arrive promptly. And do not run, boy. It will hurt less. For you. For your entire useless mercenary cadre."

The messenger ran anyway. Taneleer's only joy taken from the situation would be the screams when they were collected later from where they hid. Collected and sent back to their headquarters in bags. They would send him replacements within hours. And then, he would use them and a few other stolen prizes to show Thanos precisely what he thought of this action. A reminder of what Taneleer could be.

Carefully. At the right moment.

. . .

Peter Quill ran a hand through his sweaty mop of curly hair, staring out the cockpit of the Milano with a goofy expression of astonishment and delight painted all over it. He swung in the captain's sheet to share his cornball grin with the crew. "That is the closest to letter perfect I've ever had a job go. Like, usually there should have been _way_ more lasers and pissed off guards and probably a fistfight that, not gonna lie, I'd probably lose at first before coming up with a thrilling recovery strategy. But this? _Damn_ , man. Feel like we actually earned this paycheck."

His grin faltered at everyone else's expressions. Drax, eternally stoic. _Well, yeah,_ reasoned Quill. Drax hadn't gotten to personally nutpunch the Titan yet for his responsibility to countless past murders, including those in Drax's own family. Rocket was busy making sure the active camouflage that painted them as a Chitauri scout-ship was still stable in case they got picked up again, not really paying attention to him. Gamora had the glass box in her lap, and her face was tight and dour as she stared into the swirling red depths of the liquid 'stone'.

At least Groot met his eyes with a happy smile and a thumb's up for a job well done. Quill flung his hands up in gratitude. _Somebody_ got it. "Thanks, man. What is _with_ you, Gamora?"

Her gaze shifted from the eerie thing to him and with a moment of useful clarity he saw something else there. Discomfort. "All this for Loki's plan."

"You agreed to it first! Look, I'm all for being weirded out about that guy on an hourly basis 'cause he is for real a creepy looking sonofa, but he straight up knows how to plan some serious shit. No wonder Rocket does his odd jobs. I'd cut him in a percentage to plan out something based on my next dumb idea just for the security of making sure it works. Not a _big_ percentage, but like a basic consultancy fee." Quill wrapped his arm around the back of his chair, still looking at her.

Gamora shook her head and looked away. "You don't know anything about him."

Quill hung his head and stared at the metal floor tiles of his ship. "No, I don't. Everything I know comes because of Rocket and Groot here. _You_ know, and you don't talk. Even right now, I'm calling you out on playing tight-lipped, and you're still not going to say anything. I don't know why. You won't tell me why. I _assume,_ which I am actually aware is a dumbass choice with you, that it's got something to do with your history with Thanos."

That got him a dead cold look.

He flapped a hand at it, unimpressed. "See? And that's all you're gonna give me."

"It's about all I can stand to give, Quill. I'm still on board with the plan, even the next part. I'm just not going to be comfortable with it until I know we're all going to see a lot more in the way of new days to come. And I'm never going to be comfortable with where it's all coming from, or why."

"Did he hurt you?"

She scoffed, suddenly amused by the implication. "It wasn't like _that_."

"Then what?"

Gamora looked at him plain in the eye, a stare that said this was going to be the clearest she would ever be on the topic and he'd best listen close. "Because I've seen what he can be and what he can do. And when you've seen the blackest pieces of someone else, you will _never_ stop being wary."

"Fun stuff. Okay, noted. I'd still hire him as a consultant, though." He looked at the side of Rocket's head, absorbing that. "We on target for rendezvous?"

"Yeah." Rocket muttered something else to himself, looking for the flight plan he needed to get them to where his usual back-up ship was parked; the hot rod number familiar to the clientele back on Earth. "Got news on the lines, some of it straight from the Corp."

"What?" Gamora reached out a hand to pull gently at Rocket's co-pilot chair.

"They under siege already out there on Earth. Three prong strike, defense is taking the air right now." Rocket looked up as the green hand tightened on his seat. "No sign of the _Mortalus_. He's love-tapping just to see who screams back." He slumped back, black lips wriggling along his sharp teeth. "In Earth's defense, they got a pretty good set of lungs on 'em."


	8. Bradbury's Butterfly

8\. Bradbury's Butterfly

. . .

Bobbi Morse kept the Quinjet under perfect control, her instincts taking care of the incoming patterns of alien laser fire and the occasional, apparently universal, game of chicken. She glanced out the window to see Tony Stark keeping pace. "Ready to drop the second wave into defense position. You kids buckled up?"

"We are wearing our parachutes where necessary, yes," answered Wanda Maximoff with prim readiness, looking up to Rogers for confirmation. At his nod, she continued more firmly. "Mr. Wilson, sir, is our landing area ready?"

The comm crackled into life. _"If you accept 'less incoming crazy alien fire' instead of 'all the incoming fire' as ready, then I got you best as I can. Stark? Clear the path for them."_

 _"_ _Already on it."_ Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the red and gold streak peel off, two Chitauri air-chariots in hot pursuit. The real target hung above, a small frigate that was, according to their information from the Nova Corp, capable of dropping up to a hundred more air-chariots into the skies over southern California and parts of Mexico. Maybe not Battle of New York grade danger, but enough to cause real fear and a lot of damage to the local seaside counties if they didn't break the attack down. Bobbi tightened her grip on the jet's control sticks, pursing her lips as she studied the hovering ship and considered how much damage even more of these ships could do. Too damn much. Three more Avengers dropped out of the Quinjet's back bay just before the door sealed again. Her ears popped once, easily, as the internal air pressure normalized.

Four Corp ships came up to replace Stark as her escort; two yellow stars on either side of her sleek black plane that were more than capable of outstripping her speed, weapons capability, and maneuverability, but sticking by her all the same. Polite guys. Always nice to have more friendlies around, although secretly Bobbi kind of hoped Lady Sif would get a chance to join the party at some point. The comm crackled again.

" _Corp Rider Nine to Earth vessel, we've got your lane. Response?_ "

"Hi, guys, sorry about your welcome tour. Stick around and we'll show you Disney World later on. Ground defense is taking position against any stragglers. You and I are getting set for what we like to call an attack run."

 _"_ _Acknowledged, Earth vessel. We call it that, too."_ A beat. _"Call designation?"_

She grinned as inspiration struck and flicked the comm back on. "Call me Ice Pirate One. Always liked that stupid movie."

 _"_ _...Uh, copy that, Ice Pirate One. We have live intel from your base. Designation Vision has us wired in."_

"Better than me, I'm kind of focused here. How're the other two strike points doing?"

 _"_ _Approaching control; Corp Rider squads are in play both regions and it seems like this one is the primary attack vector. Other two are smaller feints. African defenses are pretty damn good. They're refusing SHIELD assistance right now, but letting us in the airspace."_

"That's Wakanda." She shrugged a little. "Let's do our jobs, guys."

. . .

Manipulating the vibration frequencies Daisy needed in thin air wasn't easy or much fun, but watching one of the grey scaled air-chariots find a pocket of supernaturally rough sky and drop like a rock wasn't going to get old anytime soon. With a dozen more popping into the air above the Avenger's current defensive line, she was probably going to be doing that for a little while to come.

Next to her, the Scarlet Witch held her writhing hands up above her as she telekinetically controlled what she could of the aerial battlefield. The chick's eyes glowed red as she worked, more Chitauri annoyances being flung around by forces only visible as an occasional wisp of faint crimson that matched her eyes. _That_ was kinda weird, and Daisy had seen plenty of weird the last couple of years. "Captain?" said the young woman in that odd Eastern European lilt. "More incoming. Miss Johnson and I will have difficulties handling this many soon."

"Speak for yourself!" Daisy laughed, a little stung. She wasn't wrong though. There were a lot of these grey freaks up there.

"Don't feel the need to overexert yourselves. We might be doing this pretty regularly for a while. No way this Thanos guy plays paper-rock-scissors with us just the once." The vibranium shield spanged back towards Steve's hand as an air-chariot fell out of the sky to land with a crash against the wall of dry, yellowing stone nearby. "Agent Morse? What's it look like up there?"

 _"_ _Final positioning for our attack run against the invading craft. You'll see us strike in ten more seconds. Vision is running tactical updates across all squads, we're at full efficiency."_ The comm cut back off as Wanda looked briefly delighted with the news about her android friend.

"Stark?" Steve went for another update as he barely spotted an arrow cut through the sky and drop another chariot. Sniper fire took out two more as Romanoff changed tactical positions. When one of the Chitauri attackers got too close, a spark of electricity popped the interloper out of the air. The Black Widow's special kiss.

 _"Watching the show."_

"Watching or helping?"

 _"_ _Little of column A, little of column B, so the line goes. Okay, I'm mostly helping, don't get that ton – whoa, there they go!"_

Steve turned to watch the five ships – one familiar Quinjet and four strange yellow stars, all in a winged attack line – zip at sonic speeds across the landscape overhead. Quick mental math had them in range of the larger frigate in four more seconds. He counted them off as the air-chariots paused to pull upwards, trying and having no realistic chance to slow the offensive ships above.

On the four second mark, the outer two ships peeled left and right and sped up to mark the frigate's fore and aft weapons rigs. Clear shots on both, leaving the center three ships open to do the real meat of the job. The Quinjet had a single top quality missile on it that had been hastily rigged in by the Director's engineers; a weapon not ever intended for galactic conquest but up for this dirty job in a pinch. Steve saw the missile drop from the black belly of the ship and take off like a lance. Less than a second later, hot white fire ate the side of the now-moving frigate.

 _"_ _That should toast its warp engines or whatever I'm supposed to call them,"_ muttered Morse into the line. _"Gentlemen, want to mop it up?"_

" _Rider Nine, Rider Twelve, we're on it."_ Two yellow ships peeled ahead of the Quinjet as she braked and pulled back towards the defensive line, her work done. Smaller weapons fire scattered more air-chariots as they shrieked towards her, all of it ignored as the Corp struck hard and fast.

White fire and red destruction. The frigate seemed to fall backwards in Earth's atmosphere at first, then began to tumble towards the ocean below with a creak through the sky that sounded like an offended scream.

Barton's voice crackled into the comm channel, slow and sardonic from his hawk's nest well above. _"These Corp guys are gonna stick around and help us drag that crap up outta the ocean, right?"_

Steve Rogers gave Daisy Johnson a glance. As the ground team's connection to SHIELD, she'd know. She saw his look and popped a thumbs up. "Oh yeah, totally. Sure."

He cocked his head wearily, seeing through it. "You don't know for sure."

"Look, we'll get it sorted out, okay?" She pulled her face into an awkward, sheepish grin. "Kiiinda wasn't top priority when we had to pull the galactic emergency alarm, all right? Look, I'll tell you this much. After the fish oil thing? We aren't leaving that stuff down there to be found like the world's crappiest sci-fi ripoff of Titanic."

Something about her annoyed cadence amused him. "I can already see why Stark seems to like you."

"Ew, and he's kind of a snarky jerk. I really don't know how to take that, dude."

Steve grinned at the description. He might be okay with her, too.

. . .

The three could feel the stone the moment the world's hidden cave widened to let them pass through, a sense of utter stillness fluttering along their skin like electricity. It was Death who led them down into the deepest reaches of the secret place, her position earned by her gentle manner with the newly awakened world around them. She did not speak of what was said between them, nor of what would come for the world's fate after they left. That was for it to decide, and not for either sorcerer to pay out their gamble on who had been correct about its nature.

"We're close," she whispered. "The stone has been left in a larger cavern within; a natural formation from when the great forces of the world surged out to shape itself at the dawn of the universe. And then, nearby, where the first sparks of sentience found their own new birth. I remind you, it is with us even now to observe what comes."

"Having been sincerely worried about being crushed to death by absurd amounts of heavy stone and earth above me all too recently, I assure you I'm not going to get rude about it _now._ " Loki glanced at Strange beside him, the goatee'd sorcerer forever unimpressed with his attempts at levity. "You're clear on what's going to happen when we get close?"

"I maintain the structure of the fourth dimension around us all, hard enough work. You'll be going in with the Mistress to approach and remove the stone properly. Is that plain enough?"

"We're missing some fiddly bits like not dropping it in a crack or getting stuck in some other world's paleolithic hot-crust birthing, or, what was that little story I read? Stepping on the wrong butterfly while adrift in time. Or any butterfly, really." Loki's voice turned sardonic. " _Unwanted_ changes are not in the plan. While there is a temptation to wonder if we could simply turn Time to some perfect moment before it all goes pear-shaped, the grim reality is that there is no such single moment. There never is. Everything interconnects with everything else, and what replaces what we dimly think to fix may be brutally worse. It's powerful, like all the stones, but also to my understanding the most useless to harness in many respects. Also, the stone has a pull to it. Its own whisper of life, as like all its kin. It _wants_ us to make grand mistakes. We've already felt its lure across this world. That will be its own difficulty."

Strange was silent, partially annoyed at the short lecture on general principle, wholly aware the man was entirely correct. In a moment of no ego whatsoever, Loki had let slip early on in their preparations for this day that he'd been at hard study on the riddle of the stones, becoming something of a scholar on them near to match Thanos himself – and even the lady with them. This was a thing Death had suspected in him at Omnipotence City, and later seen with her own eyes. If she deferred in this, as she had, then it was only truth. Ultimately he settled for a soft nod of his head, acknowledging Loki's words. Besides, they'd seemed meant as much for himself as Strange.

"We've all hard work to come," said Loki, the dry wit leaving his voice and becoming something weary instead. The change drew Strange's gaze, getting only the side of the man's pale face. The grey-green eye was hooded in private contemplation. "I'm not going to make it more difficult for either of us out of spite."

"Enough," said Death. She put up a small brown hand to slow them, leaning forward down a long, umber cavern that seemed to gleam with some pale light. "We're here." She looked over her shoulder at them both, mustering a small and entirely human smile. "Last chance for a bathroom break."

The joke pulled a short, startled laugh out of Loki, breaking the tension between the two sorcerers. He stepped away from the Sorcerer Supreme, giving him room in which to work.

. . .

"How oddly unassuming it looks," said Loki. His arms were crossed before the triangular black breastplate of his armor as Death passed between him and the natural rock pedestal that cradled the silent gem. She was studying some of the crystalline rock formations that made up the walls of the room as much as she was the Stone's own protections; fine and sharp outcroppings of brighter citrine and veins of new agate. Behind him, countless colors pulsed through four dimensions – and more – ensuring they were safe and stabilized within. Her work was to ensure that no one else had somehow interfered with Time. "Of them all, the most subtle. Something of a muddy carnelian, really."

"Don't dither about, Loki." Death glanced at him sharply. "Take it, as you must. This has been prepared for and the stone has waited long enough. We don't need a monologue about the matter."

Still, he hesitated. The gloves came from somewhere within his long leather coat, that decorative piece meant to make him look more ferocious than he particularly felt right now in Death's presence. She seemed stronger here, making it impossible to forget what the girl was. There was a temptation to admit a thing, drawn to make a confession about what he had secretly intended at this stage of the plan, all of it weak against the power she exuded to mirror Time's own.

He glanced up at her as he considered these things and pulled on the soft dark gloves charmed to help him protect himself and control the stone, and saw her studying him. In the dark eyes, a simple truth. She already knew what he was up to. How could she not? Of the two of them, it had been some echo of herself there in that hour he wanted to see for himself.

Her smile was sad and her words carefully chosen. "Do get on with it. Time aside, we don't have Eternity."

Loki pressed anyway. "I-"

She waved him off without anger. " _Take_ the damn moment you intend, since you've prepared for it so thoroughly. You might need its memory for the days to come, find something to contemplate there. But heed your own warnings and watch where you step." She turned away from his silence. "It's not as if I'm incapable of understanding. But know that what you're taking... it won't heal you." A single glance back. "And yet, even I think it necessary. Go."

Wordless now, he stretched a careful hand towards the stone of Time, and focused himself entirely on a single fragment of the past.


	9. Stealing Time

9\. Stealing Time

. . .

The manipulation of Time was almost nothing like what Loki had prepared himself for. The rote understanding of the magical mathematics and the water-like mental representation of the flow of that dimension was meaningless within the Infinity Stone's own internal language. For a single, terrifying second that was also countless millennia, he was lost amidst the landscape of unknown worlds as they flickered into life, aged, and then died as their suns grew too hot or too cold. A few were consumed, sublimated as other galaxies collided with the dying worlds and tore them slowly apart – and yet right now too fast, far too fast – against the black depths of the expanding universe.

He fought to mark his place, struggling back against the sight of a timeline too vast for his mind to comprehend. He felt his own sanity creak anew against all that unwanted knowledge, but as ever, it was his will that saved him from himself. Like the clench of a fist, he managed to tear himself out of the slipstream and planted himself firmly just as he wanted to be – for a moment a ghost stuck just out of phase with all else around him, capable of walking and seeing, and not otherwise able to interact or break the flow of this portion of his own missed life.

Loki saw the landscape before him at first through the deep coppery-orange haze of the stone's power, turning the green landscape and gold towers of Asgard into something like a sepia-toned painting. He stepped carefully away from where he found himself; alone at the edge of a silent, frozen throng all headed in the same direction – to the edge of the water, as night drew close. He knew where and when he was, of course. The location his instinct directed him to was near a small square in the heart of the city; a place where much younger princes begged and pleaded for new toys at the ear of a still-living and often amused queen. As for when, at some moment when lost and murdered Frigga still lay in a golden bier at the foot of Asgard's throne and its grieving king, both waiting to be taken to the edge of that unnatural sea that surrounded them all.

He did not feel the need to go see her there, not so closely as that. Loki accepted, to some still-bitter extent, that her living face was a better memory than the cold waxiness that he would see under her silken veil. That was not the closure he thought he needed.

Moving carefully to ensure he did not jostle any of these past walkers, he took himself out of the city and towards the wooded fringe. He eventually found himself high atop a cliff that he knew from long experience had a clear, beautiful view of the rainbow bridge in the distance and the funereal waters nearer below. There was a large rock there, its surface worn smooth by thousands of years of traveling hands into something close to a comfortable rest. At its base was a faded carving of some easy arcane symbol; no real magic to it, just a mark to say that once upon a time, child prince Loki had come here privately to play and to think and to watch the bustling kingdom below.

As time began to catch up with him and flow once more, he reached out to touch the smooth surface of that low and ancient stone. He seated himself on it, then abruptly buried his face in both his long, gloved hands. No tears came, he'd long since wept most of them away and had no more to give at this hour. This was that cold, bone-deep tiredness, the weight of grief and guilt that seemed like it was simply never going to end. At no point in his life since the king's guard came to tell him the black news of his mother's death had Loki felt like he could put it all down and walk more lightly towards the future. Even in his new life, her ghost still haunted him. No cruel shade was Frigga's almost forgotten smile, but a bitter one all the same. She had trusted him when no other dared, and paid too heavily for that trust.

Despite his own words and Death's reminder, the temptation began to worm into his heart as he lifted his pale face up to see the crowd now gathering at the water's edge below. Risk it all on a single change with Time's infinite power in his grasp. Step back a few more hours and be as that out of phase paper ghost, barely nudging a Dark Elf's blade aside to plunge it somewhere less fatal before falling away to some other lost second to hide what he'd done.

 _And for what?_ He forced himself to consider the possibilities, laying them bare in his mind in his own calculated voice. Walked himself through those iterations with cold acceptance. If Frigga somehow lived, then what? Nothing else would change for the better in the long run – Malekith's hunt for the Aether would have continued, he himself would have likely remained in his cell without any urge or furious drive to help Thor, and in time, with him trapped and unrelenting in his choices, never having found a new life or new friends, Thanos would come.

After that, it would all be lost anew. Dead queens, dead kings, dead worlds. No better future. If anything, perhaps markedly worse than the road lit with faint hope that he stood on now. Even on that blacker road he'd been on before his second fall from Asgard, there might have rested more hope for the galaxy. All for the payment of a queen's life, his fault for a stray and unconsidered word to murderers.

 _My fault._

Still no tears but now a stone lump in his throat. Candles flickered among the crowd, the whole of Asgard clustered tight at the edge of a sea that flowed into the darkness of space itself. There was nothing he could do but watch, taking back the moment he had been denied of by a king's order. He would see Frigga again one last time, and perhaps that would be enough. Not out of entitlement, or some hidden swipe back at Odin's command that had completed itself so cruelly. But because it was the closest thing to a goodbye he could bear to say, and something almost like a prayer to her to watch over him in the hours to come.

Amidst the crowd and within the little canal that would put her on the currents towards the sky, he saw her. The small speck of Frigga's dead form laid in the glorious wooden boat, her body gowned and her face still veiled in purest silk. The stone in his throat threatened to choke him.

"I'm sorry," Loki said, not realizing he spoke aloud. Only the magpies and the songbirds dozing in the thick trees heard him, and somewhere an owl hooted its soft and eerie response.

Frigga's body continued its journey to the edge of the sea. He found he couldn't watch it after all, despite his belief that this was what he'd come for. When the king's selected archer lit his arrow and took aim, Loki watched the small speck of fire reach the apex of its careful arc and then watched the stars in the sky instead, knowing it landed well without any desire to see the boat burst into sacred flames for himself. And then the new stars rising from the water to scatter among those old ones; first the Queen's star, bright and eternal and an omen of some peace of her own, and then those of dozens of other Asgardians, fallen by Dark Elf weapons.

He watched the sky sparkle in its old and forever beautiful silence, barely able to breathe, and knew Death had told him a truth all those who had met her twice might understand.

There was no easy closure here for him. No final farewell to be found at graveside, whether here or close enough to touch the face of the dead. The grief would not leave him in this way, and he realized he'd known that all along.

What he could not do, not yet, and perhaps not ever, was forgive himself. He stared at the sky for a long time, placing all that old and heavy grief carefully back inside, and prepared to go back to where Death and the future waited for him.

. . .

She had waited patiently for him indeed, small brown hands clasped together before her as she stood next to one of the pretty citrine outcroppings. They lit her like sunlight, and it made him wonder if there'd been some other silent conversation between her and the newborn world that encased them.

Strange was, for a blessing, still outside. Loki didn't look at her as he returned to his anchored proper moment in the timestream, sealing the fading carnelian of the now-sleeping Infinity Stone away inside one of the small, glistening spheres he'd had hidden inside his coat for this purpose. He looked at the engraved surface of the metal orb when he was done, not sure what he was thinking and thankful the etching allowed no physical reflection. Finding new reasons to question his own plans and burying himself in fresh doubt.

"She sees you," said Death, so softly that it forced him to look at her to be sure she'd actually spoken. "There are secrets here that I will not violate, but what you cannot find there in stolen Time, I will give you. This once, because it is necessary for us to continue. She sees you, Loki, and she has never given up hope. Never lost her pride, and in your hours among friends, she finds a victory there to be seen plain."

"I don't have that," he said hollowly, shocked cold by the odd gift. "I don't know that I've ever had that much hope in myself. Not when I was the second son, not when I fell into the black, and not after she was lost. Even now, it's just not that simple. It won't ever be."

"If you cannot yet find hope in yourself for what comes next, then understand that she is no longer alone. There are today others with that hope you cannot bring yourself to carry, others who know well of you on this road. Phillip. Daisy. Leo. Groot and silly little Rocket. Myself. And others yet, who have seen these changes and still are learning to understand them. Do you doubt them all as you never doubted Frigga's care?"

He was silent, but he considered that. His chest hurt.

"Through the black and into the day once more. That's all we can do. All we can try." She looked away, towards Strange's psychedelic protective shield. "I feel them drawing close, that stolen stone of Reality being brought to its haven. Just as arranged. I think they've done well, them would-be guardians. There are two more then, before you must go on nigh alone. I have to avoid him as long as I can."

"Simple enough thefts," Loki managed to say, the sphere tight in his hand. "Too simple, with the tools I'll hold once we meet Gamora and her crew. After this one... well. Time speeds up, doesn't it?"

"It does." She gave him a small smile, one with a little fright in it. "I hope, Loki, but I am still scared as well. I took too much of the weight and lure and hope of being human into myself. It comes to pass I begin to understand deeply why life fears me so much. _I_ begin to fear myself now, my own inevitability. It's all too quick, and too much left unknown. Even for me. But I cannot, _cannot_ fall into Thanos's grasp. Anything for that to be avoided."

"I understand," he said, tucking the stone away and out of sight. He looked up at her, and for a moment Death's presence eased. There was only the young girl who shared her fate and power. He managed a wry smile for the girl's sake, if not his own. It helped. There were always fair and good uses for illusion. "Let's get out of here, leave this newborn planet to itself. And maybe a last, quick meal in peace before it all falls apart."

"Pizza!" The hands clapped together once, in abrupt and youthful delight.

He shuddered dramatically, drawing a laugh for his trouble. "Far too human now."

"Extra cheese."

 _"_ _Gods."_

. . .

 _The Eastern Coral Sea, an unmapped island not far from Fiji_

Thor put the tablet down with a harder clatter than he intended, scuffing the soft matte metal of its back against the hard wooden table when Banner refused to look at it and its data regarding the day's skirmishes against the small invading strike teams. The initial three, and since then, two more easily swatted aside. Thor's human friends were being harried, drawn out to test their endurance before the Chitauri's master came himself. The Avengers knew all of that, but had to stand in defense anyway. Sleep that night would be short and taken in turns, always ready for another round until someone found a way to stop the advance. Thor was here to do his part.

The scientist shuffled further away within the tight straw bungalow, his arms crossed tight against himself as sunlight dappled through the thin walls with a tropical warmth that felt out of place against the coldness hovering between the pair. Thor shook his head at the posture. "You cannot ignore what I'm showing you, Banner. There is no hiding, no defense. There is only the battle to come."

"Look, I don't care how you found me. I don't care why. I'm _out._ I'm a bigger threat to, uh, to everyone than your brother ever was. _You_ should at least pay attention when I say that." One hand came free to slap agitatedly at newspapers from all around the world, thin sheets musty in the humid air. "Doesn't take a scientist to guess what's going to happen. There's going to be laws. Political maneuvering. All sorts of new agencies. I'm not that egotistical, I know it's not _all_ because of what I did in South Africa. But I'm the headline. I'm the- the money shot." Another slap to underline his words, the cover of a Chinese periodical with a blurry shot of the Hulk tumbling halfway down the skeleton of a broken tower. "Leave me alone."

"I don't care about the politics, Banner. I don't care about your reasons for your choice of personal exile. If we're to draw my brother's name into it, then I must remind you that such things are better his domain than mine." Thor looked out the open door towards the distant beach, remembering to avoid wasting overmuch time in trying to prove the value of Loki's newest life. He had to make a better use of the time before him. So Loki's own plan suggested. He sighed instead. "For me it is the honor and the war and the survival. So that war comes 'round too soon, Banner, and in no shape that this world is prepared for. It needs men like us instead, to help stop it before it truly starts."

"So what do you want from me? New materials? I got some ideas, sure, I'll give you those to take home. Combat schematics? Call Tony. You want the other guy? Door is right there. I don't let him take calls anymore." The thumb came out from under the thin purple shirt, jutted. "He's just not a good houseguest."

"Upon Earth, I understand your fears. We are mighty, us two, and our steps are never light. The grass often breaks where we walk, despite our wish to sometimes be gentle." He pitched his voice low and heavy with import, managing to earn a squirrel's quick glance from Banner. What he saw there on Thor's face made the man look again, more carefully. "But where I would eventually release you in your chaos, will not be upon its surface. I intend a better purpose for such destruction."

Bruce shoved his glasses up his nose, a reflex born of old habit while he thought that over. "What _exactly_ do you mean?"

"When the time comes, the field of battle I mean will be proven plain to your sight. At that time, that dangerous hour, I will come to you again – and I beg thee, my friend, fight alongside me when I ask." Thor reached out a strong hand to Bruce, his face pleading. "Read our files. Prepare yourself. And wait for me."

Bruce looked at him for a long, cautious time. Eventually he offered up an even more cautious nod, picking up the tablet with tense fingers. "I'll, uh, think about it. Okay?"

Thor nodded back, then offered a small bow and let himself silently out the door of the bungalow to stare at the calm blue ocean and the empty sky instead. It was the best he was going to earn for now. He'd done what he could. For Loki's sake.


	10. Pieces of the Self

10\. Pieces of the Self

. . .

Nebula watched for the right moment to suit her purposes. They were watching closely down on Earth by now, but they were also busy and had their eyes set on specific signals. She and her stolen starjammer transport would slip right through all the bands and energy waves they thought they knew about. The real trick was being damned sure neither the Chitauri nor the Sakaraans now joining in on the harrier sky-fights picked her out and dropped a note to the family business about her presence.

She shoved hard on the stick, spotting some rough snowbound terrain peeking along the clouds as she dove her own tiny vessel underneath an arriving spine-like grey-steel craft. Dropping low enough to the ground to mask any energy trace the invaders could pick up, she shrugged off the small flutter through the village at the sight of her. Their fear would get lost in the noise of the real fight about to start above them. Nebula glanced quick at the display tracking the situation behind her, saw seven of those gleaming yellow Corp ships drop into the fray. Three of them immediately went for a shielding position over the townsfolk she'd just passed and she snarled a little. Wouldn't buy her a lot of time if the locals somehow got their ear about the ship that didn't fit. They probably wouldn't. One alien invader was going to be pretty much like another for the people in the sticks. They might sniff her tail off their yells, but they had no idea what she was up to.

The ship plunged into a canyon leading south just as the screams of more arriving aircraft cut through the sky. Domestic craft. Locals. If she looked up, she'd probably see their combat logos on the rig. The stylized white bird she'd seen when researching the place. An 'eagle' or whatever. The kids. She grinned, nothing pleasant about it. "Good luck dying."

She didn't actually care if they died or not – cannon fodder, that was all these defenses were going to come to in her opinion. Feed the beast till Daddy showed his face. Then she would do her part. Not to save this planet's ass, because who gave a rip about any of these small worlds? But to see _his_ kicked. Now that, that she'd show up for in a new dress.

The starjammer picked up speed as she guided it adeptly through Earth's lower atmosphere, just shy of going supersonic. Her goal was another fifteen, twenty minutes away. The lush, reclusive little country with maybe just enough bite to get what she wanted done.

Her grin grew wider.

. . .

Irani Rael bobbed her knotted back platinum hair as she signed off on the final order to move the Infinity Stone in Nova Corp's safekeeping from the transport vessel she'd kept hidden in deep space to the new holding mechanism set inside the titanium-hard rock core of a lifeless planetoid just on the edge of their galactic rim. Thousands of light-years away from where she now stood, the primary C&C office on Xandar. "Proceed," she said to cap off the formalities, then lifted her head to observe the procedure herself via the live transmission feed.

As she watched, sixteen uniformed Corp officers marched in careful, strategic unison out the back bay of the transport vessel. More already lay ahead to secure the route. The feed filled with the soft hiss of their environmental masks going live. She folded her hands behind her sharp blue jacket as they double and then triple checked their surroundings to ensure no infiltration units had managed to slip in ahead of them.

"Signaling an all clear," murmured her assistant softly. The pink young woman was following a digital feed from the distant team, the nuts and bolts of defensive information filtering through her before giving the highlights to the Nova Prime. "The Infinity Stone is inert. No unusual power reads as they access the new storage facility."

"Good," said the Nova Prime, giving the word a confidence she didn't feel. Loki's information indicated this method would be the safest in the short time, from keeping it in transit to baffle tracking, to virtually burying it in a cage while Thanos focused his ire on the distant blue planet. Loki had made no promises as to the long-term efficacy of the idea, and she hadn't disclosed to him any specifics on what they'd done.

Something didn't fit right, a seed-pearl of discomfort jammed up underneath her instincts. She wasn't able to focus on the transfer long enough to hunt it down, however. Another of her assistants came up in a hurry with the latest skirmish reports from Earth. She studied his face and gave his report for him. "The attacks are picking up speed."

"Yes, ma'am. Three more in the last hour, two of them over the northern European coast. All hands holding fast, but unless the next phase is soon, we're looking at multiple team exhaustion in ten hours. Less if they escalate further."

 _And then that planet is a snack, waiting helplessly for the warlord to come pull the Mind Stone for himself._ She didn't state the obvious aloud, simply gestured at him to forward the reports on to Director Coulson on site. That man had optimism in job lots; seemed confident that they'd come up with _something_ to counter the advance. Bless his little human heart. For his sake, she hoped he was right.

A soft beep from the console below. "Small power reading." The girl frowned. "Not our stone."

Rael spread her hands on the silent console next to her, bending down to read the information for herself before glancing at the transfer feed. They saw nothing, still announcing an on-site all clear. She shook her head and looked at the scrolling data. "Can you pinpoint it?"

"Could be a pulse from a local star. Instruments are being sensitive enough." Small pink hands flew across the console. "Unusual, though. Never seen anything like it. Almost unreal."

"Keep tracking it." She returned her attention to the feed as motion caught her eye. "Transport, report?"

 _"_ _Transfer almost complete. Forward team is sealing the cage in twenty seconds."_

"Anything out of order?"

 _"_ _Negative, ma'am. If we'd ever done anything like this before, I'd call it textbook."_ The officer had a hint of pride in his voice. Not unearned. Still. Something tickled at the back of her mind. An urge to grab the comm with both hands and shriek into the line to open the damn thing back up, grab the stone they'd only just placed, and run like hell.

She shook it off as irrational.

. . .

Loki's gloved hands slipped into time-phase as the cage around the Power Stone started to seal, the Corp guardsmen standing with pride in a job done quickly and well. The solid titanium cage was of no concern; with Reality's ability tapped just the slightest – all he dared, and even that much frightening in its implications as the red flow of its dominion threatened to slip his control at first - his fingers dipped through the metal as if it were liquid. It would hide further what he was about, if the cage seemed to hold no tampering. He palmed the sphere Quill and his unlikely little team had managed to corral Ronan's former prize with as if it were nothing more than a stolen watch, and then the hidden cave at the edge of equally hidden space filtered away again into the sepia tones of frozen Time.

His face was tranquil as he stepped away from the now-empty container and the time-locked guards, though his mind was far from it. All the thefts stung him to complete; each betrayal necessary in the short term yet now he understood too heavily the consequences of each. The costs incurred against the trust he'd fought so hard to earn. At least those that needed to know, knew and understood. He held on to that.

The worst was still to come. He allowed a soft exhale and then drifted away easily through time, back to where Death waited for him. She would walk alongside to the fourth stone, the last one he needed to gather. As she had promised.

. . .

The silvered mechanical men stepped aside to let Nebula pass, their pockmarked robot eyes within the anonymous steel masks scanning her with each casual step she took down the deep green line that would guide her to Latveria's throne room.

The metal men thought to threaten her at first as she broke the country's border, claiming their loyalty to their king and maker and insisting that they could do her lasting and fatal harm. It was charming; the first one she'd destroyed a good sparring match but not much more than that. No trouble tearing out its inner explosive unit before it tried to take her with it. The rest stepped back as they saw more plainly what she was and the weapons she'd brought with her. The weapon that she was. As their king saw her, really. Each set of those metal eyes merely an extension of his.

She walked with her bare blue head lifted high and a small but fangy smile on her lips, a princess of war arriving in a foreign land. The smile faltered at the one who greeted her first before allowing her to pass deeper into the throne room.

Beyond the woman, half-metal herself and given a blank, eerie face, she saw _him._ The green-robed sorcerer king, the technopriest, Victor von Doom. That was a vision she'd expected; the fully armored man resting with a noble's lazy ease in his great chair, legs spread under an emerald tunic as he held a goblet in one silver hand. Not her. That was new.

The cyborg woman took another step towards Nebula and bowed once, deeply. "I am Lucia von Bardas, factor and representative of my great king." Her voice was almost a thing dead, the only life in it was found in the fervent last word. A small chill went up Nebula's back when the face came up to meet her own. "I ask with all due respect for your introduction, so I may present you properly."

"My name is Nebula." She looked past the woman and directly at Doom, at least liking the way her own voice seemed to vibrate in the hall's still air. "I am a daughter of Thanos."

Lucia looked sharply at her as the king sat in unreadable silence. "Do you come to my lord to deliver threats?"

"I came to deliver Thanos." She still refused to look again at von Bardas, at the scars along the woman's face where she, too, had been remade. At the silver eyes that no longer looked quite real and held no life. "But maybe that isn't valuable here." She half-turned, as if to go. Part of her wanted to, instincts crawling into startled life.

Doom leaned forward, but did not speak. It was enough to make her pause, despite her new misgivings. What had he _done_ to the woman before her?

 _It's not as if I care,_ she snapped to herself, remembering that she was Nebula, and she answered to and feared no one. _One monster is as good as another. Who cares how he treats his things? I'm not swearing servitude to another jackass, I just want to kill the wannabe God that made me._

At night, before the murder dreams started, she would fall asleep remembering the whirr of the surgeons Thanos liked best. The murder-medics. She stole a glance at Lucia's reshaped face and saw nothing there. This was not a woman that dreamed any longer.

"We watch the skies as the grey beasts attack," said Lucia, toneless. "We watch and we make preparations, for all this has been foretold." She looked back over her shoulder and for a split second Nebula saw a real emotion there. Worship.

Something flopped over in her stomach before she swallowed it back down and committed to her plan. "Well, their master is coming. Not long now, either. The Corp is tiring and they won't and can't send much else to back up the local kids. They're gonna have their own big problems once he finishes rolling over the planet. But if your prophecy says you need to step up and take a crack at him yourself, the window's opening. I can get you through it."

Lucia opened her mouth, then closed it as the sound of stirring came from behind. The dark head bowed again, her hair knotted back tight and elegant. Nebula could see the silvery trails of the woman's circuitry as it ran along the human's neck and down into the rest of her body. Not as elegant as what ticked along inside her own skin. It looked effective enough.

"We are interested in what you have to say." The sound of the goblet clinking softly against the armrest of the throne. When Nebula glanced towards Doom, she saw his fingers steepled before him as he considered her. Pinpoints of light glinted inside the mask, the only hint of his eyes and thus his mortal flesh. "Lucia? Pour our welcome guest a drink."

"We don't have a lot of time for dinner parties." Nebula folded her arms against herself, reasserting her attitude. "Tick tock."

"There is always much to learn over a meal, and so, always worth its payment in time. Stay. Speak. We will listen, of course, and then we will... consider what we may offer in return for your gift."

 _Gift?_ She tried to not scoff outright. "Money's always good. Gold is damn near universal. The promise of the head of Thanos himself? Now that, big guy, that will buy you some serious shit."

The steel mask regarded her with silent disapproval as von Bardas whisked herself away to set the table. "Negotiate later. You are in Doom's domain, and we fear little. You will speak. And we will set our course once the stars are right, as gods and kings must."

The unease returned before she set her jaw. This was the bet she was taking. So long as Thanos went down – well, maybe they'd kill each other. That put the grin crawling back on her face. Something to consider. Maybe do this cruddy little planet an extra favor while she was at it. "Good point." The mask still regarded her. The hell with it. Play along. Stroke the ego. She shrugged. "Your majesty."

The green folds of his robe curled in on themselves as he inclined his head graciously. All royalty and approval again. She skipped the curtsy, but when he rose from his chair to stride towards the long table to join her, she allowed a tiny bob of her head. Like Lucia had done.

For her part, the rebuilt Lucia von Bardas looked on silently. Waiting for her next command.


	11. Darkest Before Dawn

The first part of a two-chapter update today that will close out Part One.

11\. Darkest Before Dawn

. . .

 _This is Wolf Blitzer following up some breaking news here in The Situation Room just before dawn on the East Coast. NASA is reporting a new atmospheric disturbance over the eastern Atlantic Ocean, about two hundred miles away from the Virginia coastline. This is a larger reading than what they've reported previously, which resulted in what is now fourteen different 'small-scale skirmishes' between these attackers and world militaries, all of whom are in a panic._

 _Our DC correspondents have verified with military sources that many of these attacking ships are – I repeat ARE – similar and in many cases identical to what struck during the 2012 disaster we call The Battle of New York. We're waiting for more information about the new development off the coast, but for now, let's look again at some footage that's been coming in over the last few hours that seem to show The Avengers engaging these attackers over several parts of the United States..._

 _. . ._

"Shut that bullshit off," snapped NASA's current director of media relations, turning to her administrator. Her boss. The big guy, appointed by the President of the United States himself. Behind her, the large TV screen snapped away from CNN and into dead black, the new silence quickly replaced by the hum of the monitors carrying live feed from another agency, the NOAA. The room was otherwise filled with the soft hum of scientists collaborating over Skype and other methods with colleagues in other organizations. Her hands dropped to her hips. "That's not even close to what we actually told them. Just an excuse to show more crap blowing up for ratings."

"I know," he said, still calm. "That's the business. What _are_ we getting out of Wallops?"

"Virginia's getting readings that exactly match the brief we got from SHIELD. I _know_." She flung a hand in the air, feeding off her fears through anger and visible frustration. All things she had to not show off when actually dealing with the media. "You want me to make the call?"

"I'll make the call. Assuming the Director has time for me. About now, I figure he's probably on a conference call with about twenty different countries who either want him to pull their ass out of the fire or think the attacks are his fault." He kept his voice easy, even preacher-style slow. Someone had to be the storm's port of call.

"Atmospheric disturbance. Jesus Christ, what a way to sell it. We got a dozen sites on fire, people dead across the globe, the military up our ass, and they just want more ratings. Hype the mystery but show the corpses. _Christ._ " She snapped her fingers at one of the techs, softened her expression when he looked at her with an expression that said he was braced for it. "I'm sorry, Johns. You don't deserve my attitude in the least. What's the news?"

"We've got new cloud cover building up over the ocean that doesn't match any predicted weather current. We so think it's the result of _something_ pressing through the lower atmosphere, like the – the, uh, spacecraft we've been reading all day. Just more things popping in out of nowhere." The tech ran a dark hand across short-cropped salt and pepper hair. "But a shitload bigger. Officially, we're about to watch the abrupt emergence of a large-scale anomaly that immediately affects its surroundings. Like a vacuum, then a wave."

"Is that the official unit measurement we're going with?" asked the NASA administrator, dryly amused.

"Might as well be. Anyway, not a disturbance. A nightmare, like a very tiny moon joining our orbit. We're going to be dealing with the current effects for a while. Virginia's coastline is already sending out a tsunami warning." Johns turned away, back towards his readings. "Not my place, sir, but I don't think you're gonna have that much trouble getting through the queue."

. . .

"Yeah. I got it all, thanks." Coulson punched a button to kill the phone line, his face stoic as he processed what NASA was telling him. They were being scientists; careful to explain around the fringes of what they didn't know or didn't understand. He saw plain what they were really telling him. Their time was up. Thanos was here. "Fitz?"

The engineer shifted by the display wall, a tablet pressed against one thigh. He looked exhausted. Somewhere in the depths of the facility, other members of the team were getting as much sleep as they could steal. "Yeah."

"Show me. We've got the drones ready out there, yeah?"

"Not much to see yet, sir. Not even quite sunrise yet. Just the, the cloud build. Pretty black out there. No stars, of course." He rubbed a free hand across his forehead.

"I know. I want to watch it happen. I wanna fix the moment in my eye, so I know where I'm going next. Make a target." Phil sat down with deceptive calm behind his desk, one gloved hand and one still flesh and blood folding together. "I didn't actually see New York as it happened, so part of me always feels... I dunno. A little cut off from it? Maybe that helped, in the long run. Helped me get perspective, for one thing. I don't think it'll help this time. I got plenty of perspective now. Maybe too damn much." He jerked his chin towards the wall as the dark and cloudy sky over the ocean filled the view, finding a chance for his old sense of humor to come back for a quick visit. "You want popcorn?"

"I... absolutely do not, sir."

He coughed a dry laugh at the hangdog, stressed response. "Beer?"

Fitz winced. "That sounds rather better, actually."

. . .

The tower felt strange to Vision these days, a remnant of that distant lifetime before he emerged, reborn and also utterly new, from Ultron's intended cradle. A little light named JARVIS, who once controlled all of Stark's domain from deep within these floors. He found he liked the smaller facility upstate better. It had a warmth and a humility that Stark often lacked, though he could not help but think of the human with lingering fondness and more than a little wry weariness. But for all that, the tower was still where the technology was newest and the view most grand.

For peace, there was the countryside and its bright grassy greens on either side of the facility. For this unwanted but approaching war, he stood at the windows of the tower as if he could see the ocean from here instead of the city's jagged skyline. Displayed before him along the perfect, just barely concave glass, a thousand datastreams scrolled endlessly. He followed them all with ease. Nova Corp updates. Director's notes. The Avengers and all their incident files. NASA's confusion and restrained, sublimated state of fear. And, as if to prove his vision of that distant seascape true, the same drone-feed Coulson was watching filled a window panel of its own. He could see the tiny note at the side of the monitor telling him of the one other viewer logged in to the channel. Another reborn life. He'd liked Coulson immediately, even though those old half-awake memories held more than one reminder of the man's willingness to hijack the tower's elevators and cameras for his own need.

Divided by silence and yet together, he and the Director watched as the soft orange light of a new morning touched the horizon beneath the line of roiling white clouds. Vision lifted his head when the _Mortalus_ finally broke through the hazy membrane that masked it, the massive dreadnought eating away at the light and the soft, purpling sky with its bony black form. Those unnaturally made clouds rushed away from it as if pushed – and they were.

The ship plunged towards the water at first, thousands of meters long and forcing the blue-black surface of the ocean into a white-washed crater with the sheer force of its arrival. Then it evened out and rose again into the higher atmosphere to wrap itself again in wisps of silvery haze, too high for most Earth vessels to reach it. A shark's fin against the fragile place where sky met space itself. It was untouchable enough by merely existing, but its captains were no fools, either. Vision watched as it began to set a course that would take it across coastlines and cities to be seen within hours; its own black herald and harbinger of doom's promise.

 _The great beast among the clouds_ , just as predicted.

Vision nodded once as if accepting something, then blanked the feed so that he might watch as the clear sunrise reached the young human city instead. He looked up to see the last few stars of the morning wink down at the blue world, fighting for their place among New York's neon-polluted sky, then clasped his hands behind him as he sensed the presence approaching. He said nothing in greeting when the figure came into the room and stopped just behind him. He bowed his head once, knowing immediately that it was not Stark, nor the good Captain, and certainly not young Wanda.

"I'm sorry," came the soft voice.

"I know. I have already forgiven you." Vision paused, contemplating his own words. It was true. It had all been arranged, and there were promises to keep. He had no fury to share with the man behind him. No fear of him. No urge to fight. And _she_ was there, too. In the shadows. It helped. "Will you... watch the sky with me for a moment? It seems only fitting, I think."

Loki padded almost soundlessly to his side as the android settled his perfect vibranium form onto one of the damascus-style steel benches that Stark had left along the more decorative windows. He had watched more than one sunrise from here, sometimes with Wanda. Always in this soft, considering silence.

"There is always another dawn," said Vision eventually, watching the first yellow gleam of the sun as it flickered bright to herald the new day. He liked the sight of that fresh first light on a clear morning; it matched the stone in his brow. Reminding him of his purpose and his power. He reached up to trace a fingertip across its surface, the citrine gleam against the soft redness of himself. "If not for us, then for the ones that will someday replace us. And there will be. That's the hope that cannot be destroyed, even if this man in his madness consumes this universe. The vacuum cannot last. Life will always return to fill that empty place."

There was no response.

"But first, we must and will struggle for our dawn and not another's. That is not bitterly selfish. It is... it is survival." Vision looked up to see that the pale man had not looked at the sky to see this future as he had. Only down at him. Loki looked sorrowful, for a moment oddly young in the way the light cast itself across his thin face. Vision smiled to try and ease the weight they had to share. "It's time. I'm ready to begin my part. To help our struggle."

A black gloved hand reached for his face, gently, and for a moment it seemed as if there was another hand alongside. This one small and brown, and then only a welcoming smile on the girl's face, full of those promises made and the waiting, comforting dream that would carry him in its peace. For a little while.

. . .

Wanda cupped the mug of hot tea in her hands as she walked down the hall towards the aerie Vision had commanded for the night, blinking away the bleariness of a nap that had been all too short. The door was already open and she gave a huge yawn as she passed through and saw him, sitting comfortably before the beautiful windows with his head leaned forward slightly. His cape was an elegant flow of gold, pooled behind him like a coin. She smiled a little, liking the oddly pretty sight if not the news she must bring. "Vision? I've heard of some warning made amongst the others. An emergence, the thing that we have feared. I'm sure you already knew. I thought we might enjoy a little bit of the morning together before we must face it."

He said nothing in response. Only that tranquil stillness.

She cocked her head curiously, her instincts causing her fingers to tighten around the hot mug. Her skin began to redden where it clutched at the porcelain and she ignored the pain as her steps quickened through the room. She stopped just behind his shoulder, reaching a hand out to touch once, hesitantly, at his broad shoulder just below the fold of his cape.

"Vision?" Wanda breathed the name, growing frightened in the silence of the room.

He did not _have_ to breathe, but he often chose to. To be that much more human. This morning the slender, red chest did not rise and lower. The shoulder she touched was colder than usual. With a small gasp she stepped closer to see his face... and the small, geometric hole in his brow, where underneath lay only silver-white metal, wire, and bare contact circuits.

The mug fell from her hand to shatter across the floor between her feet and she didn't notice. She didn't even understand that she had screamed once in full and righteous horror and fury, grasping the android's mute face between her now cold hands, until Captain Rogers flung himself into the room to see what was wrong.

He stopped himself well before he approached too close to the pair, pausing at the way Wanda whirled towards him with her eyes alight in that terrifying red blaze. The window next to her had cracked from the force of some psychic power. The Vision's calm face still rested between her hands, the form of the android frozen apparently permanently into that seated, thoughtful posture. Wanda's voice was brittle. "Whoever. Whatever did this. Whatever the reason. They _must_ pay what they owe. No more deaths. Not those I care for. I cannot forgive."

Steve took a step back, resting his hand on the frame of the door. He looked past her, through the window, and the ugly, easy suspicions came to his mind. The tower's security would tell him for certain. Stark would tell him, whether he liked the answers or not. Meanwhile, the _Mortalus_ was drifting. It wasn't going to stay over empty ocean for long. SHIELD had already called to give them the bad news.

He swallowed once, hard. He looked for the calm voice of the leader he had to be, found it. "We're all going to go the same direction, anyway."

She stared at him, hollow and still enraged.

"We're gonna have to get on to that ship. Don't know how yet. But we're going to take this right back to where it started."

"Thanos."

"And anyone that's helped him get here," said Steve. "Anyone."


	12. Lord of Illusions

12\. Lord of Illusions

. . .

"Was it him? Loki? Was it?" Wanda's fury hadn't lessened since her discovery of Vision's inert, deactivated body. Her eyes seemed to pierce through Tony Stark, who was standing with his arms crossed at the far end of the meeting chamber. Not everyone was present at the emergency meeting. Sam Wilson was out with a SHIELD squad handling yet another skirmish over Asia, this one leaving hot scars across rolling fields and hills close to Tibet. Thor had withdrawn from the tower when the news broke, his return having been brief enough to raise an eyebrow. What his opinion was of the matter, of this possible new betrayal, he would not say. Natasha was out collecting a report on a possible but unverified breach over Latveria, and they weren't talking about it on open comms. She had doubted she was going to get much, but felt the need to check anyway.

No one knew where Scott Lang was. That seemed normal enough to go without too much special mention, and besides, he might have simply gone with the Falcon to the latest scene. They got along well enough.

"It's what both the security camera and the log are telling me." The engineer's voice was quiet for once. Tony brought up a hand to rub it hard across one side of his dark goatee. "Just before dawn, one authorized entry. Authorized exit. Internal sensors got him near the aerie."

"Authorized," said Steve. His voice was neutral.

"He's a SHIELD agent. He has basic permissions, like any other agent. He's been here before without incident." Tony looked up at the Captain. "This was the first time you've seen him since New York. It hasn't been like that."

"Or maybe it has been _exactly_ like that all along." Steve looked away from Tony's pinched face. "Point is, it doesn't matter in the long run except as a data entry on who to punch in the face. The Infinity Stone that Vision carried has been taken. Do we know if it's been taken to that big thing in the sky or not?"

"I don't know for sure yet," said Barton. "Probably. SHIELD logistics have it as the dominant likelihood, though, yeah. They pretty much flat out told us that's where he is now, so. I'll double-check, they might have a field scan that tracks him for proof."

"SHIELD let that guy in. Gave him a badge." Steve sighed and sat down heavily in the chair he pulled out from the long meeting table. He waved his hand across the grey surface. "Okay. I'm getting sharp. Let me step back and think a moment."

"Their intel has been solid up to this point. Even all of Loki's reports check out when matched with that Corp group's notes." Barton lifted his head from where he was hunkering in the corner. "If they got snookered again, it was done with like 98% truth and one bigassed lie waiting for its cue. We're still running on good information, Cap. They're clean."

"We get a call from Coulson yet?" Steve looked at Barton for the answer.

He shook his head. "Not yet. They've got a lot of balls to juggle. Loki was the Director's pet project. If he's gone squirrel, Phil's not going to be chatty about it for a little while. Gonna take it kinda personal."

"Considering what happened the last time Loki got behind his back." Steve's face tightened again. "So it's just us right now." He curled his hand and let it rest on the surface in front of him, looking at the edges of his fingernails. "What's our strategy look like for getting at that ship?"

Tony moved closer to the central table to lean his hip on it. "Not good. I'm running scans, as is SHIELD, and we've got the Corp run-down to refer to; metallurgic scans, energy, all the good stuff. There's a projected energy shield around the entire surface of the vessel. Don't have a theory on how to bypass that from down here yet. It's not on any wave frequency we know, no known power generation. It's foxed the Nova Corp since he started harrying the Rim planets... which is the most Star Trek phrase I've ever said and I've made my career barfing up Roddenberry science on the daily."

He got a small smirk from Barton for his trouble.

"Furthermore, it's so high up in the atmosphere we're not going to get a normal plane up there. Not even the Quinjets are all rigged for that close to space level. I can _maybe_ get there in a handful of my suits. Corp can approach since they're made for both atmospherics and space, but they only have the small fry out here to help us right now. They try a frontal assault, they're bacon bits and they know it. So they won't. Can't. Anyway, we're watching it. Maybe it does the sci-fi thing where there's a ripple we can exploit when it launches something from one of the, like, dozens of bays it's got on its ass. Leviathan sized bays, I'm forced to mention. Just to make it worse.."

"That requires waiting for him to attack." Wanda bit the words off.

"True. Kind of a problem there. We don't really know what kind of crap that thing is going to barf at us. And on top of all that, he's got the Space Bling. We've seen it make a portal before. We have no idea what he's got out there, just waiting for a launch signal." He flapped his hand, knowing he was jumping around and unable to stop. "Even so, forget the dude's rock fetish, that is a serious piece of ship up there. It goes off, we're looking at massive casualties. We've already had enough to scare the crap out of everyone, despite what we've done to knock the smaller guys out of the air."

"So why hasn't he hit yet?" Steve looked up. "Can we trust that piece of Loki's information? He's screwing around to make damn sure we're all good and impressed before he squashes us?"

Stark shrugged. "Kinda like Loki's play once upon a time. Wouldn't surprise me that someone bigger and badder might be just as theatric and maybe worse. Everyone's information has this guy as a wannabe destroyer god. That's not where I go when I think of the word 'humble.'"

"Nor are mirrors," dropped Rhodes from where he'd been seated quietly this whole time, sotto voice.

"I heard that, Rhodey." Tony rolled his eyes, privately thankful that someone had a sense of humor left. "Look, we need to focus on what's important. We're down Vision, we're down three of these Infinity Stones, and we've got an enemy so unafraid of us he's up there jerking us around like 'I'm not touching yoooou.' We need to figure out our play and make it before it's too late."

"I agree. I want to figure out a plan to take a test shot at that ship within an hour." Steve put a hand up before Tony could protest. "I know. It's probably not going to get us anywhere. I want a simulation graphed, at least. We can't just sit here and wait for the situation to change. Come up with something. Anything that's worth a shot. Barton? Get SHIELD on the line and connect us with the Corp, see if they got something that can get us in."

"And me?" asked Wanda, quietly.

"Just hold tight and let us find the right direction to point you in." Steve looked at her. "This isn't going to go unavenged. I promise."

She studied him, glittering and red, before nodding once.

. . .

Loki felt the way Thanos studied him and his offering. Four small spheres arranged around him along the scarred stone and steel floor of the _Mortalus_ 's smaller throne room as he knelt below the seated golden warlord high above. Felt the considering, glittering eyes while his own fate was decided. "Years I planned," he murmured, remembering what hate sounded like in a whisper. It came back too easily. "Years for my humiliation, to recoup my loss, to show what it truly means when I return triumphant. No single stone for you. All four. All of them now in your keeping. The gauntlet will be complete and your fist will be the one to grasp the universe by the throat."

He took a calculated risk and lifted his face to study the silent warlord. At his side were the two sisters of Asgard. Amora, who studied him in hot, green-eyed hate. And Lorelei, whose eyes were wide and aghast at his unannounced arrival. Another risk he couldn't control. He had to bet on her silence. Only she might see the fringe of the illusion here.

Thanos's voice was the tumble of arctic rock. "How does it come that you whisper yourself onto my ship? By what method? You dare use the stones? My stones?"

"My ways. Old ways, of magic and space. I make my own paths, as ever." Loki smiled thinly, skull-like, ignoring a tiny but insistent itch deep within the collar of the tunic laid under his black and gold armor. The lie had to be perfect. All of the lies did. "In arrogance, and to prove that I could return to you at any time – but only when I had something worthy to offer to wipe away my previous... falterings."

Thanos took that in with a fresh silence, eyes never leaving his face. They searched, but Loki hoped, they would not find what was hidden.

"The humans trusted me. I pretended to grovel, to play their rules and do their bidding." He flashed white fangs. "A long game. One of my best, really. Only for the greatest of results."

"And so you come to sell them to me. Your vermin hosts."

He arched a black eyebrow. "A payment for the shame I endured, the cost of the game itself. I have but one special request. Aside, of course, the long-awaited pleasure of my return to your service."

"And what is that, traitor worm? What is it you dare crave, when I might simply destroy you and take what you bring?"

"Let them wait and suffer in silence. Let them behold you in your glory, as you gain full control over the stones and the gauntlet." He let the fanged smile spread, the old jackal returned to snarl in madness. "Their lives are meaninglessly short enough. Let them cower in those bleak seconds and know what's come 'round at last. And who did it to them. Let me – and them - live long enough for that much."

Thanos leaned back in his throne of bone and steel, the careful gaze never once leaving him, almost never blinking.

"I have never forgotten where I came from. My lord. _Father_." Loki hissed the last word through his teeth, lowering his head to regard the stone cobbles of the throne room once more as he waited to see if he would die right here, right now.

Part of him would have preferred that. He buried it, and remembered fully how to hate instead. How to use hate as a tool. Dark lessons, useful in dark places such as this.

"It is the unwise man that trusts his children. But I have known you would return. One way or another." A smile crept into the heavy voice and Loki felt something cold worm its way into his belly at the sound of it. "A worthy child proven. A worthy weapon. This is how we are remade in this house; broken and forged into priceless tools of war. Regardless of your purpose and goal... welcome home, Loki."

He heard the bulky form rise from the throne, taking a single step down towards where he knelt. There was no safety here, where the memories threatened to come back and consume him. There never was.

"Welcome home."

. . .

Director Coulson looked up from the latest reports from the Corp as virtually the entire team slammed through the doorway into his office. The motion startled the thinking Thor where he sat in one of the office's larger chairs, dropping his hand from his face to the armrest as he studied the abrupt arrival.

"What's Loki's play?" Daisy spoke for the team, pulling ahead of Fitz and even May where she elbowed herself against the doorjamb. "What's he think he's doing and what do we gotta do to help him?"

Phil raised his gloved hand to slow her down before she started shotgunning any further. Before he could say something, Thor interrupted. His voice sounded full of soft wonder. "Not one of you? Not one of you doubts him in this?"

Fitz shook his head at the God of Thunder. "After all of it? Everything he's been through with us?"

"Never." Daisy finished for him. She looked at Phil again, past Thor's stunned face. "Why didn't he tell anyone? The Avengers are collectively _pissed._ They're going to go for him. Especially once they know for sure he's with Thanos."

"Worse when they get the readings we picked up. Six unique energy signatures, like nothing I've ever seen. Isn't a hard guess what that means," came Fitz's soft brogue. "He's got them all now."

"They've already been told that's exactly where Loki is. They'll know the rest soon, yeah. Just as planned. Just as he told me," said Phil to Daisy's stunned face. "And Thor. And Death. There's a couple others that got a bunch of hints to point them in the right direction – Gamora is one of them. You don't know her, neither do I, really. One of Rocket's friends, and I know you all heard me talk about that guy. No one else, not openly." He sat down at his desk and beckoned them all to come in and get comfortable. He waited until they were done. "It's how it had to play. I didn't like a word of his plan, but I had to agree to it. It was the best one we could put together. It's not us he needed to sell this gambit to, though. Not even actually the Avengers. That's not why we kept it quiet, let it play out for everyone as if he turned."

He leaned forward in the silence, looking at his team's faces in turn. From Mack's stone-solid face to May's blank slate. "It's Thanos. If Thanos won't buy what Loki sells, even just for a little while, we all die. First Earth to prove a point – and then, eventually, the rest of the universe. That's what he came here to do, and Thanos isn't a guy that changes course much. Now, Loki did something terribly, stupidly dangerous in the hopes that he can stop all of that from happening. Ran the nuttiest goddamn gambit of his life, and we've seen him hit the high watermark before. But we – _we_ have to trust him right now. Everything he's done up to this point rides on us trusting him to the end of this. Not the Avengers. They'll follow our lead when it comes around to it. We got them angry again, now they just need a target to open up."

"Will they, though?" May arched an eyebrow. "Follow up?"

"They're not stupid, not a single one of them. But they're individuals, powerful individuals and that's got a way of making them each go in their own direction. So you gotta focus them on one big shiny thing that's got them pissed off and then they are everything you could ever want from a team dynamic. We've proven that works more than once. I've got the scars to tell that story. That's what we arranged this time. And that's why not one of them is going to stop and ask until it's too late, why is it that a man who can make himself invisible and illusion up almost anything they can think of... didn't bother to make sure he didn't show up on the tower's security monitors when he took out Vision's gem."

Fitz laughed abruptly, startled. He covered his mouth with his hand.

"What he's done right now, it's to buy us time. Thanos is going to hole up in his ivory tower – so to speak – and drive himself up a wall until he's got all six stones under control the way he wants. He'll be so consumed with the space rocks that kicking our cans around for funsies goes way down the priority list until he comes up for air. According to Loki, taking control of those rocks is not an easy process. It won't take ages, because this is something the guy's been preparing for all his life. But we get _time,_ and we get someone on the inside _._ So that's us right now. Get ready. Stay frosty. Because when we get the signal-" He looked to May to finish for him, the only way anyone could.

She smiled back, a thin and ironic creak at the corner of her mouth. "We're the cavalry."

. . .

 _End Part One_

 _. . ._

There will be a one-week hiatus before we resume here on Feb 15th with Part Two.

(This should have updated on Friday, but either the site glitched or I glitched somehow; in either case, I apologize for the apparent delay)


	13. (Part Two: Ave Frater)Thus Fell Lucifer

Part Two: Ave Frater

 _Horror has a face, and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies. ~ Colonel Walter Kurtz, Apocalypse Now_

13\. Thus Fell Lucifer

. . .

 _In the Earth year 2011 – Edge of Asgardian space_

. . .

 _All the light had gone out of the shards surrounding his slowly freezing form, the colors of the rainbow left behind in that better realm with the other fragments of the broken bridge. Out here, in the deep beyond the bubble of Asgard's sealed atmosphere, there was only the black. Black so rich and expansive that it seemed like he had gone blind. He couldn't find the stars. His faltering, oxygen-starving mind wondered dazedly if they'd ever actually existed or if they had been some fragment of old and dimly remembered dreams._

 _His breath was all but gone, but his body instinctively tried to hold the last gasp tight in his searing lungs anyway. He struggled against that instinct as the feeling left his cracking skin against the relentless pressure of the void. Better to accept the consuming dark now than linger on how the letting go seemed to be burned onto the very surface of his corneas. Better than that final rejection, the last word 'no' from Odin that seemed a total denial of all he had ever been and the ending of what he could be. Better than everything that had happened since Jotunheim. Let this cold, alienated loneliness be the way of it, then. In the end as in his life._

 _He closed his eyes, even that tiny physical act excruciating, forcing that last breath out of his thin body with a shudder._

 _I'm dying, he thought._

 _I'm dying out here, alone, where there are no other monsters but me._

 _Thank the Gods. Oh, thank gods._

 _. . ._

Gamora preferred to meditate in the start of the first cycle, where the light of those distant, dying stars strewn throughout the cosmic wisps gave hidden Sanctuary the only dim gleam of morning it would ever have. The constant pounding of warrior's booted feet and the clack of chitinous armor was almost imperceptible here in that time, leaving her in peace in the cold steel hangar with its incongruously lovely view of purpling space. It gave her a chance to lay her knives before her as she knelt on one knee, frozen in a killer's pose, and placed her mind and that inner eye precisely where she wanted it all.

Thanos's hirelings and enslaved tools knew better than to disturb her here during this time. No one had even dared parked a ship in this bay in three years; not since some fool of a Kree ambassador had considered himself better than one of the warlord's own children. Even worse: better than the _favored_ child. For the transgression, Thanos had offered her a choice once the man had given up his only useful scraps of information to him. Either allow Thanos himself to execute the trespasser swiftly via his own methods, or handle it herself.

She had handled it gladly, pleasing him. The Kree man had been more than rude, typically dismissive of her slight form and green skin. She let him feel pain before permitting his final escape from this life. Rich, deep pain. Yet another fanatic tying himself to the ancient ways, in the service of a new and possibly interesting leader just now gaining ground among that empire's old guard. Not something Thanos cared about yet. But in time, they might be useful to him.

 _If_ they learned the purpose of sacrifice, as he reckoned it. Thanos had sent the head back to ensure his point came across clearly. By their respectful silence that answered his message, it seemed it had. But she had given the order to let his handmaidens go unharmed with that message, those small blue slaves who had tended the now dead man's ego amidst his pointless rituals. Thanos often permitted her in these whimsies, though Nebula would always mock her for the apparent mercy. It was never about mercy, those decisions. If it was, she would have paid dearly at the hands of their father for the weakness. Gamora tried to explain this to her once and only once – it was about an understanding of shared pain, and a promise. It had all gone unheard, lost on her blue and steel-forged sister. Such uncaring deafness was often Nebula's way. She didn't bother to explain again. The other secrets behind her choices were for herself alone. The methods of her own survival. The almost fantastical daydream of her someday escape to a place with real, warm light.

Like in her oldest memories, those ghostly flickers of a world filled with the living instead of this dangerous, unending darkness.

Since that last ill-advised incursion, no one abused the privacy of Gamora's _own_ known piece of sanctuary. It helped that no one – save perhaps Thanos himself - knew where she hid during the third cycle, the darkest hours that passed for night.

She took a soft, slow breath, held it, and then let it go to warm the air before her face. Again. And again, until she was warm despite the hanger's natural chill. She didn't need her body mods for this trick; this was all willpower. Inhale, now with her head raised in proper posture. Exhale, her lips slightly parted while she placed herself in a predator's perfect stillness. Inhale, while she fixed that place in her mind – the tall rock where she might track and conquer prey. Exhale, the lunge. Life and death. It was good. It kept her balanced in a home where everything was eventually a threat.

Her breath caught in her throat as something changed in the atmosphere around her, a hint of trailing air through what should have been the cool and still atmosphere of the recycler. Something only the barest bit warmer than it all, and cooler than herself by far. She let the half-formed breath exhale out in a rasp, a single warning to any invader before opening her eyes.

Nebula lay prone, almost fetal, on the steel grate of the hangar floor before her, her cheek pressed hard into the bolts and seams. Her black eyes stared mockingly up into Gamora's face while the smallest of smiles curved at the corners of her bluish-purple lips. Gamora refused to shudder. When Nebula smiled, things died. She stared back instead, forcing herself to be utterly calm. "You're bothering me."

"I'm just laying here. Completely quiet. If someone sitting around and staring at you messes up your concentration, you can't be that good at it." The smirk widened. "Just saying."

Irritation made her hands clench atop her thighs. She said nothing to that, knowing her lips tightened enough to be seen anyway. This was one of Nebula's best skills, the one she practiced the most on her elder sister. The art of the needle.

Nebula rolled onto her back and stared up at the far away ceiling of the hangar, letting her hands – unarmed, for a wonder - come into plain sight where they eventually fell to lay on her belly. Her fingers began to thrum in some meaningless rhythm. "You don't ever get tired of this routine? Never get the urge to shake it up some?"

"I get more than enough excitement when Thanos sends us out to cull."

" _Daddy._ " White teeth flashed up as the single word vibrated threateningly through Nebula's enhanced vocal cords. "That _is_ where all the fun starts."

"Fun." She said the single word tonelessly.

Nebula snickered, unfazed by her attitude. "It beats boredom by a parsec."

"Did you come with some sort of message from our father? Is that what this is about? Even you have enough sense to know not bother me at this hour. At least, you haven't done it in damned years." To make a point, she reached out and plucked her favorite knife up from where it lay, holding it before her like a sigil.

"No message. No big job. Just a lazy day ahead for us. Almost a holiday. Like a birthday."

Gamora resisted the urge to snarl at her sister in disbelief. All this intrusive attention for what, then?

Nebula rolled her head over to look at Gamora again, her round face suddenly open and childlike under the bare scalp as she dropped the bombshell. "You wanna go see our new baby brother?"

Gamora's fingers tightened around the knife in actual shock. _"What?"_

The smile again, open now. Delighted. Feral. "They're putting him back together right now. Guess he was on the shady side of already dead when they pulled him out of deepspace." Nebula looked back up again, thinking. "He's kinda pretty all froze up and blue. I wish they'd keep him that way, but I don't think they will." She sat up abruptly, tugging at the green wrist that held a knife as if they were both toddlers. "Come on. Come and _see!_ "

. . .

Gamora couldn't take her eyes off Corvus Glaive. He stood like a gargoyle at the foot of the medical slab that held the still-frozen body, his gnarled and lumpy hands wringing at each other at the edge of the black robe he wore as the attendants whipped around the room at their business of 'healing'. She could see his pale bluish-white chin from under the hood he always kept close around his head, his face strapped thinly in a cage made of the same tempered gold Thanos himself favored. Saw the way his corpselike lips wormed together covetously as he studied the new prize. Corvus Glaive, one of father's favored generals and advisors, a place set just below his chosen children. Corvus, the murderer who earned his title atop a pile of bodies made in Thanos's name, those unsettling hands clasped with stunning deftness around a sharp spear-like weapon – the glaive he took his chosen name from.

Corvus the torturer, and Thanos's _other_ hand. It was clear who had already been chosen to sponsor the new foundling, who had stepped forward all too eagerly to shepherd the man properly into Thanos's service when he awoke. He often took the new arrivals in; new mercenaries or new guilds looking for an easy payout on the edge of space. Most of them didn't survive his administration long. This would be the first time he would stand for one of Thanos's own selected. Gamora wondered what that meant.

She looked at the nearly dead figure on the other side of the med bay window and felt no pity for him. Not out of hostility or instant dislike, not yet. Pity was a rare emotion, one she could not spare lightly and certainly not for an unknown quantity. She crossed her arms against her soft tunic and studied him more carefully.

As the Chitauri slave-nurses worked slowly, painfully at the job of knitting together flesh and muscle wracked and torn apart by his exposure to the unkindest depths of space, he kept changing. The warmth – the searing heat of their tools, to be proper – turned the blue flesh first to a common humanoid's heated pink and then a less natural pale near-white as they passed. Curious. The change left him just as striking-looking under the mop of dark hair, features sharp enough to pass for more than one world's concept of nobility. Whether blue or pale, there was a natural arrogance to the lines of his face that even his closeness to death could not erase. Her own face tightened into immediate wariness. Pretty men tended to be annoyingly dangerous in one way or another, in her experience.

"Picked him up just outside of Asgardian space. His stuff's from there, but he's not Asgardian himself, I guess. Not that I know much about their crappy half-dozen kingdoms or whatever." Nebula shrugged next to her, quickly becoming uninterested with the show. The flashing dance of the scalpel-machine was too familiar to keep her long. "Who cares, anyway? Probably an improvement that he isn't. They're even more boring in that place than most people. _Honor and glory!_ " The last came out in a sneer.

"And not typically prone to dropping the dead off the side of the world. They burn them, I think I read. Make them into star-stuff, prop them up in future legend or something like that. If they earned it." Gamora cocked her head, thinking aloud. "Guess he didn't. So what'd he do to get the trash compactor treatment instead?"

"Like I give a rip." Nebula yawned at the rhetorical question, knowing that it irritated her. "Daddy knows, I bet. You could probably ask him."

That was an obvious trap. She said nothing to the bait laid, ignored it completely. Just as trained. Everything Thanos did was a trap, designed to snare the unworthy and show themselves for flawed creation. He claimed to love his carefully selected 'children,' but he wanted them strong enough to withstand him. If any of them faltered, he would destroy them himself. This one would have to prove himself, too. Just like she had. Over and over.

Her fist tightened under her arm. Nebula had been there for the last failed son, Gamora remembered. The groveling workers sent into the hall to wash away the remains while she stayed well outside to listen. It would be her turn this time to observe. Her turn to watch the pale man turned once again into broken scraps and ash in the face of Thanos's disappointed fury. She didn't know how many more of these sights she could bear to take.

Still, Gamora did not bother to wish him good luck. No one would have ever bothered to do so for her, no one ever would. She had to work hard enough for her own survival in this place, not carry anyone else's load for them. She refused; to falter would mean her own life. She turned away and left Nebula alone at the wide window. If she hurried, she could take back another few minutes to complete her meditation. That had knowable, worthy value. The new man did not. Until he proved otherwise, she resolved to forget about him entirely.

. . .

 _The first breath of Loki's new life was a scream._


	14. The Rag and Bone Man

14\. The Rag and Bone Man

. . .

"Give him what he needs," said Thanos. He didn't pause in his stride along the racks and long aisles of the armory, hands clasped together neatly behind him as he judged the work of his underlings. It was good enough, though not superior work. The smell of the weaponry oils and other chemicals was heady in the air; thick and choking and full of future battle's mortal promise. That he liked. It was right and good, a thing of knowable order. "Give him his armor back. A fine, new set to dress himself in. Make it real, of course. No cheap metals for my children. No lies. Dress him well, as the prince he was in his last life. He would know the difference and rebel against it. You cannot afford that much error. Not at this stage."

"My lord... You are wise. And yet, I fear such humoring will feed his arrogance. He is already nigh untamable in that respect, even under the strictest of controls. He fades in and out, one moment too aware, the next tractable and silent. The work is not stable yet. I grow wary of this trait in him. It empowers him, when he feeds on it in those few sharper moments."

He ignored the sound of Glaive rustling in his wake, the incessant whisper of his robes that seemed to drown out his raspy words. "Arrogant men are made of brittle steel, easily broken when you find the seams. Once shattered, Loki will then be simple to remake." He smiled, toothy and bright even in the gloom. "This method worked for you, Corvus. You were also prideful when you bent the knee to me, boastful of all the things you could do in my name. I had to break you down near to the bone over the course of months, to remind you that you would do these things for me and not for the glory of yourself. Do you remember?"

The rustling hesitated until the voice came again, soft and respectful. "I do, my lord. I have never regretted my oath to your service. I have become stronger in the shadow of your name alone, this blade honed sharp enough to cut the light. All for you." A brief pause. "I heed. We will adapt. As for my other... recommendation?"

"You will _not_ use the Soul Stone upon him." Thanos scoffed outright and passed from the armory into the black halls of his Sanctuary, still moving in that deceptively casual stride. "I have watched him already, in those hours where you think I might not. I find much there to study and my conclusions differ. My children require a measure of willfulness to remind them to be strong before me, Corvus. Strong enough to give me what they have. There is a great deal of such will in him, it drives him even more than that arrogance you fret about. Depriving him of his soul will remove this necessary piece of his identity. You would weaken him overmuch, a mistake I will not permit. And that is the only explanation I will give. Do not question again."

"He will become _too_ willful, given time. My lord."

"And again, his most useful flaw is simple pride. Wield it. I have granted you extraordinary authorization to experiment with the Mind Stone, Corvus. Your results with that are finer than you think. I have permitted you the overseeing of my new son, a remarkable honor for your service all these years. Do _not_ now extend yourself beyond the boundaries of my courtesy and my respect and press for more. Break him and create him afresh for me; do it well. For if he falls again, I must hold you responsible." He paused in the doorway to the lower crypts and turned to regard his advisor, his face set in a plainly readable threat. "I will not put it on my Gamora to see his last moments. It will be you set to watch his dissolution, and I will ensure it makes an... enduring impression."

Corvus bowed his head low and deep. "My lord. I hear you, and I obey. All for you."

Thanos narrowed his eyes, studying the shadows within the cowl of the robe and finding them familiar. This loyal creature, trained to be as an extension of himself. He would not disobey, though on occasion he exasperated. It would see Glaive strangled one day, if he did not remember to keep close his caution. Thanos nodded once, otherwise satisfied, then moved away to his next duty. "I grant you one more scrap of advice that you will use when it suits. Give him enough freedom to forget the fences, Corvus. Let him range."

"And then?"

Thanos shrugged. "I will speak to him myself. Only when it is time."

. . .

Gamora slipped quietly through the halls of Sanctuary, unseen by most of the guardsmen and unaccosted by the rest. They knew better than to interfere with her when she was about her business, and she had no need to ever inform them of what that business might be. It allowed her unparalleled freedom under Thanos's eye, although she used that freedom cautiously. His favor of her above all others did not mean there were no restrictions. It meant that it would be that much more dangerous for her to step outside a boundary when she had no idea where they lay.

It also meant constant danger from Nebula, who craved the position she held while also holding her in a kind of twisted adoration. Fortunate for her that Nebula still found it more fun to torment her than attack, and fortunate that all the other 'children' were currently dead. Except, of course, for the new one now alive for some few weeks. He was still an unperson to her, a ghost with a meaningless name. He did not attend the evening meal. He did not even attend the drills. She wondered once, vaguely, if he had recovered at all, or if Thanos's find lay trapped in a medical cradle deep below while Corvus figured out how to use the dour turn of circumstance to his favor.

It was possible that what she had found was connected. To search too deeply could lead to another trap, but she wanted more information. Such was the currency here, and she preferred to stockpile where she could. She let herself into the machine bays, searching for the one other person who would at least listen and play her games. The enemy who was, if whimsy struck, an occasional ally. As ever, only Nebula. For her cyborg sister, hate and love were the same thing.

Nebula looked up from where she had her own arm bolted into the workbench as Gamora slid through the doorway. "Kinda busy."

Gamora turned the rest of the way at the sharp note in her sister's voice, saw the arm's synthetic blue flesh peeled carefully back to expose the intricate wiring and cybernetic memory-rods. Nebula wasn't looking up at her any longer. Her hand held a single tiny steel prod, delicately adjusting one of the connectors. When the pointer finger of her bolted arm stretched outright in protest, she frowned. Pain meant little to Nebula. The lack of control was more upsetting. "Dammit."

"I can help." Fifty-fifty she kicked off another year long cold war out of some implied insult, or she'd just bought herself a tiny favor. She hoped for the latter.

"I don't _need_ help," snarled Nebula, slamming the tool down onto the workbench to prove otherwise. Her trapped arm contorted, electro-kinetic ripples along the misbehaving flesh. "Got sent on a small cull last night. Some creature the size of a boulder slammed me into a wall so hard I actually felt it. I tore his head clean off as a thank you. You should have been there, it was pretty great. Wiped out half the continent in about two hours." She looked up at Gamora. "But then I got the shoulder twitches this morning. Stupid son of a bitch messed up my rotator sub up near the joint, won't snap back on its own. I should have let him die slower for that."

Without replying, Gamora crossed the room and sat herself at the other bench set alongside the vise. She picked up the tool and studied the inner workings of her sister's arm. "Certain it's the rotator?"

"They're my parts, Gamora. I'd damned well know." Nebula looked away, the words coming out with as much sharp heat as she could manage.

"Yes. You would." She tilted her head to get a better angle, one Nebula couldn't manage. "Have you been down to the sub-levels lately?"

"What, by Daddy's little love-shrine? Why? He put in a new statue? More flowers? Cute little mash notes with rhyming poetry?"

She shook her head before carefully moving a wire aside. Deep within the arm, one of the few real muscles Nebula had left pulsed slightly at the sensation. "He gave Corvus a workroom. Right by the vaults and the lower catacombs. New construction."

Nebula swore, low and vivid. Corvus Glaive was universally disliked, save by Thanos himself. In one of their kinder moments of something almost like actual sisterhood, the two had wondered if perhaps the simpering advisor was kept around as bait to see which child of Thanos gave in and killed him first. It would be self-defense. The advisor was respectful enough in the light of day, but also covetous. If the current toy failed to amuse him – that Loki, assuming he was viable – it wouldn't be long before he'd try to gain permission to torment one of them instead. So far Thanos had denied him in all such attempts. There was never a guarantee that would last. Favoritism was not a gift in Sanctuary. "What'd you see?"

Gamora leaned in, fully aware that she was also placing her vulnerable neck in attack range. Yes, Nebula was right. She could see a softly blinking error light half-buried by a plastic-enclosed vein, the light itself the size of a pinhead. "It's not just the wiring, Nebula. The indicator's on. You need a new morphometric plate in there. The small ones."

Nebula slapped at her with her free hand, hard. "Not that!" She jutted her chin at an almost invisible drawer set in the wall. "I've got a replacement set hidden there. Keeps me out of the hands of the med bitches, because screw them. Do it for me."

She found the metal case easily enough, once she knew where to look. Nebula was fastidious with both her security and her labeling, treating even unused spares like living pieces of herself. The set of pliers she needed was right alongside. She kept her voice calm. "Then don't hit me again or I'll finish this with my knife. Need to reset the vise, stretch your arm a little more."

"Fine, whatever. What's that creep doing down there?" The vise opened with a clank. Nebula's palm extended, letting Gamora yank the arm to the fullest extent before resetting the bolts. "If it's a kinky sex thing, don't tell me. I've never seen that freak under his robe and I don't want to know anything about it. I want to die knowing he's as smooth and physically unfuckable as a starjammer ship's hull."

It took half a minute to pry the dead plate out and she stayed quiet to focus on it until she was done. "I had to sneak in. Took me four days to figure out how. Thanos gave him one of the Stones to play with. I don't know which for certain, it's in a small containment bubble. Corvus has it rigged up like a weapon. A scepter, maybe a spear. Metamorphic shaft. Almost all gold. Not completed yet, I think. Lots of missing parts. Looks like he's been at it a little while, couple weeks. About as long as the new boy's been here. If he still actually exists."

"You are shitting me, Gamora. I don't like jokes." Nebula's voice was cold.

The pliers didn't want to clasp onto the new plate properly. She fumbled, drawing a sneer from Nebula for her attempt. She arched a dark eyebrow and nailed it on the second attempt. "I'm not."

"New boy exists." Nebula spat the information at her, no doubt considering it the favor Gamora just bought for helping with the repairs. "Saw him last week."

She paused, the plate halfway set into position.

"Don't _sit_ there and leave me with my parts stuck out in the wind!" Nebula's free hand came up, then paused as she remembered the prior warning. The hand came down again, clenching. "He was just there, looking out at the stars. In one of the observatories, all in black. Looked like shit from behind, only view I got. Straggly, I guess. There were, I don't know, a bunch of books just dropped around him, stuff he'd flung into the walls. Could hear him breathing, so. He's still organic. They didn't rig him up like me, lucky piece of trash. Probably not even like you. Must be durable, whatever the hell he is."

The plate clicked into its home, scraping a bone remnant as it locked. She felt Nebula jerk a little, satisfied. "Couple of wires, then I'm done. I'll even fix the seal, close up your arm just right."

"Aren't _you_ being the doting sister today. Anyway, he didn't say anything. Not even sure he knew anyone was there. I went by that hall about ten minutes later, gone. If he's Corvus's big science experiment, Daddy's all right with it. You tell me what you think that means."

"Same thing it always means." Gamora finished the internal repair, picking up the small laser tool that would knit together the blue flesh. "None of us are safe here. Ever."

Nebula laughed at that, light and cheerful.

. . .

Gamora passed by those observatories twice after dinner herself, reflexively looking in to see them empty. No books. No trace anyone was ever in there. It was entirely possible it was all a story Nebula made up to cheat her way out of the silently agreed upon trade, a ghostly yarn about the dead man trapped in Sanctuary's halls to be cut apart by Thanos's general. Not the first time something like it had been done, and without any proof other than what she'd seen herself down below, it was going to be the logical answer.

She'd already filed it away in her mind as useless information when she all but slammed into the shadow, the tall figure lurking half in the doorway of a connecting tunnel that led to the halls below. She froze instead, her hand on the hilt of one of her knives, studying the shape as he moved quickly – almost animalistic in his gait – out of her way.

He didn't say anything. Loki breathed softly under a mop of tangling hair growing fast out of control. Wild enough to obscure his face. The shadows did most of the rest, allowing the little ambient light there was to glint only across the armor he wore. Her face sealed at the sight of that; the elegant flow of green and gold along his arms and his chest. Something new since Nebula had seen him, when all this meant she'd actually told the truth. Thanos's gifts, some offering to appease the noble face she remembered as he lay cold and still on medical steel and rough sheets. He was allowing the new 'child' a scrap of the old life to burrow into, it was obvious. Gamora immediately saw the snare implicit in it, could have warned him. Didn't.

"Watch it," she snapped instead, too rustled out of her own sense of security at the way he'd seemed to simply appear before her to come up with something more scathing.

The words drew an eye out of the shadow, an eye glazed for a moment as more of a feral grey than green. It sharpened as it focused on her, the face coming out just enough to show her the expression that abruptly flowed across the bony features. A look of careful study, and now in the eye that saw her clearly, frightening intelligence. For this single moment, whoever or whatever Loki was, he was _there._

Something in her spine tried to trigger the fight-or-flight instinct at the threat implicit in that much intelligence. One boot scraped half a step back while her fingers curled tighter around the knife at her hip in a visible warning. He still said nothing. He looked away instead, moving deeper into the shadows. A moment later and he was gone, still moving in that padding, near-silent gait.

A doubt tickled its way into the back of her mind, an absurd urge to run to Thanos and to warn him that there was something else squirming behind the mask they were putting on the new son. She finished her step back, made herself begin to breathe in that careful, measured way she used during her meditations. Thanos knew what he was doing. Even his failures were planned. There was something in Loki that he wanted, that he was letting Corvus guide into being with the weaponized stone below.

 _What have you let into this house, Father? What are you making him into?_

Only Sanctuary's deadly silence answered her.


	15. The Divide

15\. The Divide

. . .

Corvus passed behind the station that held the half-completed scepter aloft in the center of his workspace, lifting his head high enough to regard it fully. The dim blue light of the containment bubble at its tip caught the gold encasing his chin as he smiled through an almost lipless mouth, satisfied. One artifact of will responding in mute acknowledgment of another's sense of self. An act of dominance, a little exposure to its target, and the Mind Stone within heeded his commands even from within a barrier designed to narrow its effects into a manner more easily manipulated.

It did not last, of course. The need for regular exposure to its target was a fact of its weaponized state; a side effect of weakening the Stone enough to allow for that smaller, more precise control. The ultimate study case sat, docile, in the fine chair to prove this out. Loki was trained enough now to not turn and see the thing that now held his thoughts fully in its grasp. He saw only the rest of the workroom laid before him, designed as if it were a small, well-lit study any scholar might desire. Too bright for much of Sanctuary or its denizens. It pained Corvus's eyes, black eyes better suited for warrens and the darkness between stars, but it was a small sacrifice for a job well done. He chose his tight veil and its cowl for just these reasons, keeping the hateful light mostly away from his own sacred dark-bound sight.

He kicked the rest of the day's experimental leftovers out of his way as he paced without paying them much heed, his boot connecting with a soft and meaty thud.

"What was that?" asked Loki. His still-raspy voice was full of arrogant demand, but still, he did not turn. He sat in his chair, otherwise calm underneath the tangling mop of his hair. He was not to be ever permitted mirrors, by Glaive's command. That much connection with his own identity might undermine Glaive's work thus far. Too risky to leave to chance. He was content to debase himself personally in soothing the man's ego and noble pride until that risk was negligible. Then the vain young lord could preen as he liked, and no sooner.

"Rubbish, my young prince. Nothing more than that." Corvus reached up to pluck the scepter from where it hung amidst the lattice-work of wiring and observational controls, running one hand along the smooth plates of gold. The final framework of titanium and silvered steel along its head still needed completion, and some of the internal crystal structure yet needed stabilizing, but still. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever made, incongruous against the bleakly mismatched bio-tech architecture of Thanos's hand-forged kingdom. "No need for concern. Our servants will be along shortly to clean it up."

"Rubbish in the study?" He could hear the frown mar the noble face, his disapproval still prim and cultured. Corvus hid his amusement at the dichotomy present, seeing the other prince he was making. "Hardly proper."

"A small accident, my young lord. Do not trouble yourself overmuch with such things. Is there not a book set there by your hand? Keep yourself at peace and let us tend you." With a single flowing motion of his hand across the morphic sensors set within, the short scepter lengthened itself and became a staff instead. Corvus studied the aesthetics of that, considering how he might redesign it into something even yet more smooth before presenting it to Thanos. The glory of the piece should be cradled well of course, that blue case held in display and also in safety. His own ego was not small and he decided he wanted some representation of himself in this fine work after all. Make it a glaive fit to match his own identity. Reshape this first iteration of the head, grasp it in thin, broad blades with the stone nestled amidst. A dead flower with robust, living thorns.

Paper rustled for a moment before the book was set back down. "I'm in no mood for reading. Something is awry."

Corvus looked up sharply at that hint of possible defiance, passing the scepter to his other hand as it shortened again. He wormed his hands around it, pointing it directly at the back of Loki's neck from the other side of the workbench. Blue light pulsed along the delicate frame of the staff. Targeted contact with the chest and its quickly pulsing access to the pulmonary/brain system was vastly preferable, but in a pinch, a prod at the very base of the skull where the nerves bunched and gathered would do if his control was only slightly fading. "And what is that, my lord?" He kept his voice mild.

"I can't seem to focus quite right." The head turned, but only a little. Corvus saw the line of his high cheekbones, the flicker of an eye set deep in sleep-deprived pits. "The story does not engage me. My mind is... I'm not certain. There is much to contemplate, I think, but it all dances away from me. Untouchable. Like shadows."

There was an opportunity here. He kept to his mild, conciliatory voice. "It's only eagerness, my lord. The news I brought earlier, it distracts you."

"News?" Befuddlement. The head turned away again. "I don't recall any such news."

Corvus kept focused on his target, allowing his hands to relax just a bit. A side effect, this occasional loss of short term memory. He would have to continue to remedy that, else he might find unwanted complications in a more... active environment. Temporization would do for now, and meanwhile, the negative could easily become a positive when used carefully. The potential long-term effects he disregarded as irrelevant. "Ahh... Perhaps I was so eager that I thought to mention it and had not in actuality, my lord."

"Then have it out!"

"You are to be sent on your first cull. At our lord's command, a small matter. You will be the one to serve in glory tomorrow, set out upon the stars to remind the galaxy of its place and your own."

Silence at that at first, contemplative. Corvus could see a pale, dirty hand flexing along the armrest of the chair. "And will I see your lord there? My host? I have been waiting."

"When it is time, young prince. I assure you, he watches you with great satisfaction."

"Days I've been here and not seen the man. This is no way to treat a guest." A dismissive sniff.

Corvus smiled for himself alone. Many weeks now since his first breath of recovery, in truth. Weeks of hard work and seeing the limits of the man's endurance. So much will – but Thanos, mighty Thanos, had seen him true. Prick the pride, and find the work sped up. Corvus had made great strides with his experiment in the last several days, building up the man's esteem and then tearing it back down again. Not all this work required the staff. He had many tools at his disposal, some far older and sharper in his hand. Now the proof of his efforts lay at his feet and in the man's fading sense of time. "You are far more than a guest here. In time you will understand."

"What am I, then? Damn time, what am I?"

"A prince, of course. A prince in the service of our great lord, and he sees that service plain and with great pride. As he would any his sons and daughters."

 _"_ _Sons."_ It came out in a hiss, a sudden hostility that might have seemed out of place, if he had not given Corvus so many of his secrets during previous sessions in the chair. Not all. Never all, the brat. But _that_ tale had poured out of him like black blood.

Corvus smiled at the sound of the man's anger. That was useful, too. "Go forth when the hour comes and act as you must. You will understand more then. Thanos rewards well, when his glory is held high for all to see. You will do great things here. All the things you never could elsewhere. This is his promise to you. My lord never breaks a promise given. He lives on the threshold of both order and truth, and his oaths are iron."

The prince stirred, settling back in the chair. "I would still hear this promise in his own voice."

Corvus stepped back at the mildness in the voice, setting the scepter back into its wire netting. The danger had passed. The man never turned to see what he'd actually done at Corvus's bidding, a gambit to see how far he could push the prince while honoring the limitations of the stone. "You will. Oh, you will."

. . .

Loki tried to pick up the book again when Corvus left him for a moment, claiming a need to gather the servantry over whatever nonsense had happened elsewhere in the cozy study. The only place in this godforsaken dark hole that seemed like those parts of a lost home he only dimly remembered now. It didn't matter, he supposed. It simply wasn't important to dwell on it. He looked at the soft, brown leather cover for a long time, the words somehow not coalescing right before his eyes. It was something he'd read before, of course, so no great matter that he was not in the mood to focus on it.

His hand trembled and he wasn't sure why. He set the book down once more and lay his palm across it, looking at the white skin and feeling a pain laze itself through his mind as he tried to reconcile what he saw and what he didn't see.

 _Why is my hand bloody?_

He blinked through the sharp, glassy sensation that followed the frightened thought, felt relief when reality asserted itself properly. That was better. That was right.

 _My hand isn't bloody at all. I don't know what's come over me._

He flexed his hand, not feeling the way his long fingers were bruised as if from some brutal battle. He didn't see the small, ragged scratches on his wrist, didn't see the dirt under his nails. He lifted his hand and turned it over. The palm was clean, no dried blood at all. Not even the long, dark stains of heart's blood that ran into the deepest lines to crust over. None of it existed for him. None of it was real.

He set his hand down again, content.

Probably a stack of books had fallen over. That was all. He might have taken care of it himself out of whimsy and his own fondness for such things, but Corvus had insisted the problem was his to address. Very well.

A moment later, he scratched at his throat where he himself had attempted to tear at it in self-salvation instead of heeding Corvus's murderous bidding, feeling nothing more than a distant, vague itch where obviously his tunic had irritated him.

A cull. Such an old word. He was going hunting.

That sounded proper somehow, the idea rattling around in this new serenity that filled his mind. That sounded _right._ A fitting duty for a prince, to hold up a king's due honor. Even if this new king seemed just as distant as the last.

He smiled, thinly at first, before his jaw began to hang like a jackal's in soft, silent laughter. Yes. He would hunt.

It covered the small, spiraling sound deep in the back of his mind that might have been a scream.

. . .

Thanos turned off the remote display before Corvus returned with his fixers, uninterested in the mundane needs of everyday corpse removal. The actions of the controlled prince were satisfactory enough in the short term, when divorced from what he actually desired. An interesting experiment in limits; a way to pressure someone into doing what they might not otherwise. Not something to encourage his advisor in overmuch, however. A trick of limited use and not applicable here. The dangers Corvus had actually created were unclear to him. A prideful oversight Thanos would need to correct himself, eventually.

The Stone was strongest when coaxing others to press further along only what they might do normally. It was probable Loki had some capability for murder in him previous to his arrival in Sanctuary, hence the success. Asgardians were raised to seek and glorify battle, no great stretch of imagination or morality there. They were a brutal people, given to war. Thanos liked this trait in them, enjoyed the observations of that kingdom with its tight galactic borders when they came. But the absolute red frenzy Corvus had produced out of the outcast was certain to create side effects with each such attempt. There were boundaries here, at the edge of what mortals could understand of infinity. Corvus knew, and Corvus still pressed them. It was plain to Thanos that was the source of the memory issue. Not the exposure itself.

Loki's _mind_ was the tool he wanted sharpened and bent to his service, a subtler knife meant for a long-term plan of Thanos's private devising. Not this brutal outburst of violence. A nearly pointless diversion today, save for three useful facets: the proof of the man's slipping sense of time, his fading grasp on reality, and the groundwork laid deep in the psyche for further blood at necessity. The war Thanos needed to create in the boy was firmly planted now. Thanos considered the tremble in the young man's hands, considered the way Glaive in his self-admiration missed that detail as well. It was not an unrecoverable situation. He would observe the culling first, see how Loki chose to handle it when under far less outright control by Glaive. Then he would know if the boy was worth approaching personally or not. Where the divide in the self truly lay.

His hopes remained firm. The tremble in the hand did not tell him of some weakness in the steadily cracking man. It told him the will yet remained somewhere inside Loki, that valuable drive that could lead to self-destruction as easily as victory. With the _context_ under control, Thanos could choose to enact either if necessary. Corvus's experiment told him that much was in his grasp. Loki's sense of place was now theirs to shape. Reality's truth was... optional.

Thanos smiled. The first test had been passed, if shakily in the face of Corvus's overeager fumbling. There were so many others to come in the days ahead. He looked forward to the results of each one.


	16. Without Question

16\. Without Question

. . .

Gamora pushed her way past the mute Sakaraan grunt when he didn't move quickly enough for her taste, marching the rest of the way down the steel-gridded landing pad towards the scene of fresh devastation. She kept her chin lifted high as she passed the rest of the mercenaries and guardsmen as they stood in formation against the burned out hulls of stone and steel buildings. Some of them were granaries, the contents spilling out into streets cracked apart by heat and laser fire. She could smell their harvest scorched in the air, saw flickers of white ash still floating on battle's breeze.

"Ma'am." One of the humanoid mercs nodded sharply at her, acknowledging that now that she was on the surface of the planet, she held supreme command of the field in Thanos's name.

"Where is he?" She kept her voice even, but she couldn't take her eyes off an orange horizon striped with blackened smoke.

"Ahead. The pass your pilot should have noted on the monitor." He sounded pleased. "It was a flawless fight, ma'am. Barely even that – a cull in perfect word and deed. Most efficient thing I've ever seen planned and put to action. I'm putting in a recommendation to Thanos himself once I'm cleared. That's if he'll accept it from a command lead."

She said nothing to the question in his voice at first, watching that black smoke spin up on the hot breeze against the distant guttering flame and questioning how many more such scenes like this she could take without giving away the game. Her secret dream of freedom, of running nonstop until she was far, far away.

"He had our fighters swoop in over the livestock, starting a stampede. That alone drove most of the targets right towards the pass in a panic. Sealed their own death that way. All we had to do was pen them up and light a match. So to speak, ma'am." She could hear the grin in his words, nearly threw up at the sound of it. "It was a big match."

Targets. She hated the sound of the clinical word. Call them what they were, victims. "Most of them."

The merc shrugged offhandedly. Just another day for the cull crew. "Volunteers took cleanup. Had to draw straws, near about. We're sanitized here. No survivors, no rescue coming from the next region over. They got the hint. Secondary team is ready to acquire the cargo on your command."

"You're relieved. Go write your cull report. And your rec, if you like." Her voice was cold. The tone meant nothing unusual to the man. All of Father's forces were used to her chilliness on the field. It was simply how she was. Part of how she survived. Freeze herself up until she didn't have to feel what she was doing in 'Father's' name any more.

The merc snapped her a sharply trained salute and disappeared into the ship she'd just departed, not seeing the crease form between her brows as she forced herself to head deeper into the destroyed town and its thick sky of burnt ash and flesh.

. . .

He looked up from a small yellow fruit he was peeling with a knife as slender as one of his pale fingers, seated easily upon a carved-out rectangular stone the residents had probably once used as a waymark rest. A few hundred meters on was the narrow gap to the pass. Gamora could smell it from here, forced herself to continue forward until she could see the misshapen bodies laying in the black smoke. She inhaled through her mouth, steadying herself against a mind that threatened to reel.

"What was all this nonsense for, anyway?"

She looked back at Loki, finding him no longer looking back at her. A seed popped free to be forgotten amidst the weeds that popped up between broken stones. So, he was functional again. No longer a mute shambler in the black halls of Sanctuary, adrift in whatever haze held his mind. Now that sharp intelligence held sway here again, putting another knife in Thanos's hand. She was unsure this made for an upgrade. The smell of the smoke was choking here; its haze thick enough to make the midday seem nearer to night. "You didn't ask the field command?"

"One enemy army is much like another. Only the field logistics tend to change somewhat. Fortunate we were that the terrain was agreeable to a simple solution."

"You think of these people as an army?" Gamora stared at the top of his head, seeing only the snarled black hair and the golden shoulder-guard of his armor.

He shrugged. "I wouldn't say I _thought_ of them overmuch at all. A king made a command, and where I come from, such things are executed. Efficiently. With as little blood on our... our hands as possible."

"Efficient." She looked towards the pass without actually hearing the small pause in his voice, feeling her breakfast turn to hot acid. She turned it into ice to fuel her own voice once more, drowning her disgust. "Well. It certainly was that, according to the mercenaries I left at the departure point. Thanos will be... very pleased with what you've done today."

"Excellent. It's _nice_ to have a day's honest effort appreciated for a change." The way he said it implied something vastly different than what the word intended, though obviously he thought the words touched with clear pride. She heard something else beyond that buried in his voice, found new and fresh dislike for Thanos's foundling son in it. He made her skin crawl. "I don't suppose he's arriving."

"No. I am in command of the field in his stead. As his daughter." That got the grey-green eye filtering up to study her, set deep in the thin face. Not an eye that missed much. She inclined her head at him with as much frosty, distant acceptance as she could manage.

"I see." The head lowered again, this time in an almost absurd and courtly short bow. "That Corvus might have said as much. I had no idea. My apologies for my casual address, madame."

Corvus. She looked at him in silence, wondering what exactly the torturer thought he was accomplishing. Clearly they were getting favorable results somehow, but right now this was also not a man that seemed forced into action. She looked away, burying her confusion for the present. Thanos still held a number of secrets that she couldn't unearth. Not all riddles had answers she could grasp. "I don't care about titles and heraldry, Loki. But does that apology apply to our last meeting?"

That got her another look, this one puzzled for a microsecond before he smoothed it over as if it had never been. She felt a chill, realizing the truth even as he spoke his lie. "I'm sorry. I must not have been paying attention at all at the time. My apologies for any offense then as well."

 _He doesn't actually remember it._ She watched the knife pause in his hand as the brow knitted together tightly, remembering the single second of real and frightening clarity in his eye as he stalked the halls in feral silence. _Or does he? What_ are _they doing down in the catacombs?_ It would be better, safer to not question. Self-preservation took priority, always. She kept her breathing regular and kept the questions off her face. It wasn't her risk to carry.

Loki set the knife down on the stone next to him, the fruit alongside. He clasped his hands together delicately and studied her back with a mild expression so openly harmless it put another chill down her back to match her memory of that feral creature in the hall. "If I may politely ask my question once more – what was the goal here?"

She turned outright and gave him most of her back, facing away from the pass and its fields of the dead. "They kept artifacts here in the heart of the town. Old artifacts, things Thanos wants."

"A historian, is our good shadow king! Interesting."

"They were heavily agrarian here, you might have noticed that when you set the fields on fire. Harvest folk, in daily life and in their theology. They worshipped a being they called D'ith'ashur. The Reaper of Seeds. They built statues to it – to Her." She had to take a swallow, hid her discomfort as best she could. She didn't want to give him his answer, much less anything else, but had no good reason not to. "Thanos is... something like a historian of Death itself, I suppose you'd think. The secondary team is taking their statues now, and later on they'll extract the reliquaries from within their crypts for him to keep and study."

"Well." She saw him shrug out of the corner of her eye, his voice light and dismissive. "If they loved Death quite so much in this place, then there must be some fateful synchronicity in them all going home to Her embrace, isn't there?"

She clenched the fist he could not see, feeling her fingers dig into the palm so hard that she felt blood seep under a nail. Hate grew in it, like a fresh bloom.

. . .

Nebula popped down from the metal crate she was sitting on in Sanctuary's noisy hangar as the last few returning warships finished settling in place, sharp-eyed enough to see the look on Gamora's face as she disembarked despite her best effort to bury it. "Well? How'd new boy do at his first culling? I'm guessing by the way you've got your jaw that it was special somehow."

" _You_ ride with him next time as second." She managed to not spit the words, not stopping as she continued to storm her way through the field of parking ships. Blessedly, Loki would be arriving in another hangar. Privately. By Thanos's own command. She supposed that meant Loki had won the day's coveted place of high esteem. How wonderful for him. "Tell me what you think of him yourself then. We'll match notes."

"But that means I have to wait and don't get a story meanwhile." Nebula kept up with her easily, matching her pace perfectly enough to succeed in being annoying as well as perfectly mimicking the begging voice of a child. "Come on, Gamora. I always love how you study people. Sometimes you get mean about it, it's great. I _love_ it when you hate a guy."

"I don't know what Thanos wants from him. I assume he's getting it. I assume he's satisfactory somehow." She caught her breath, fighting to get the ice back. Nebula would see too much in her if she didn't remember to be careful. "All I see is is a needy little boy."

"Oooh, this sounds good!" Blue hands swung together in a toddler's happy clap.

She couldn't stop thinking about the way he talked. About work well done, about being appreciated. The way Loki said the word _nice_ hooked deep into her, the single syllable spat like a nail, meant like a plea. "He's desperate to be superior to _something._ Somebody. Anybody. Is that what Father wants from another one of his children? A hungry toady who'll set a world on fire so he looks just that much better than the corpses at his feet?" Gamora couldn't stop the sneer. "Whatever Corvus is doing to him, I hardly think it's necessary. Mind, Soul, whatever they've got rigged up on that gold stick. Probably the former. But what I saw down there wasn't one of his thralls, Nebula. It doesn't matter. Thanos has a mess of a man on his hands either way, but I suppose this way Corvus gets to have his fun, too. Everyone wins."

"Well, if new boy sets the bodies on fire just right, maybe poses nicely while the mercs take a picture... You know, just push the hip out, little hint of a sexy smile. It's not hard to be more attractive than a pile of ash. So, what, he do a crap job at the cull?" Nebula shrugged. "I mean, if he sucks, then the problem eventually solves itself once Daddy sees the final report. I don't know what crawled up your ass, Gamora. You know how it works here, almost better than anyone."

"He's getting a recommendation from today's field mercenary commander."

That stopped Nebula short in her tracks. Gamora heard the voice come up from behind her, still didn't stop walking. She was too busy feeling the bitter, troubled fury rattle around in her chest like a coffin. The smells of smoke and burned flesh was still trapped in her nostrils. " _Kaluth_? Kaluth wouldn't rec his father for a job licking cheese-wheels in a condemned slaughterhouse. I saw him beat the shit out of one of his guys for not killing the day's quota this one time. Kid was off by a single dead alien. One. The alien in question died later that night. Screaming. So did Kaluth's kid about an hour later. No remorse. Didn't even write a note to the cheese-licker dad back home saying 'sorry, your son died in a training accident' or whatever. Kaluth doesn't rec."

"Kaluth. You see Loki here? He's getting welcomed home personally. You want more, go visit Hangar 12 and see for yourself. Go read the after-action report, see how he did it. I saw more than enough to prove it out." Gamora turned to look at Nebula, pausing at the honest expression of outright horror on her sister's face. She lifted her green hands in the air in an exasperated shrug. "Oh, now you're listening to me."

Nebula gained control of herself, lifted a single finger in the air between them as warning. "I'm not going to be number three in line for favorites, Gamora. I'm only in second right now because I think it's funny. Me. My choice. Because I want to be here to see the day you get knocked out of the high and holy chair at Daddy's side. I want it to be me that does it. If it's him? Loki?" White teeth showed between blue lips. "I'll still watch the show with a smile on my face. Watch how you go down. And then I'm gonna race you for the chance to be the one to kill him."

The way Nebula said it made it a promise between sisters, whether Gamora agreed to it or not.


	17. A Dialogue of Self and Soul

17\. A Dialogue of Self and Soul

. . .

Loki stumbled and then half fell against the cold steel wall as he let himself out of the darkened hangar into the narrow, brutally black halls that seemed more organic and bone and barely steel the further down a traveler went. His memories were jumbled, distantly unreal, and partially lost in the haze he'd found himself in not long after the ship had docked. He remembered the planet and its sprawling town well enough, or so he thought. Remembered a duty done and done well, although even that much was tinted with a troubling veil of doubt. Remembered Gamora's face, and her words. Something jangled in his inner ear like a black ocean at the tone she'd taken with him. Something was wrong.

 _Why would I have asked the field command anything about the day's task? It isn't my place to question._

The sharp lance behind his eye again as the calm thought intermixed with an intrusive one ready to war for its place in his mind, the whisper as soft and as unwanted as a haunt from Hel itself. ( _I used to question everything. I-)_

He sagged as something seared alive behind his eyelids in defiance of that soft but strong inner voice, the butt of his palm pressed deep against the bridge of his nose to try and shove it forcefully away. If anything the heat and pressure in his mind increased, causing him to gasp aloud in pain. The sound of it rattled against the oppressive halls, reminding him just how trapped he was.

Another thought overrode the rest. The way out, goading him to follow it down to something like peace. _All I've got to do is get to the study deep below. That's what Glaive said to do if something like this happened. Just... just go there and relax and someone_

 _(corvus, what are you actually doing behind my back? what is going on?)_

 _someone will come tend to me._

He felt the chill of the steel gridded floor under his rump as he gave in to a sudden physical weakness and collapsed to the ground. It was then he realized he was heaving for breath, sweat beginning to crawl along the sides of his face to tamp down his lengthening hair. Gone was the shorter and handsomely sleek look of the younger prince. It was a mane now, beginning to snarl and curl at the ends and he couldn't be bothered to tame it. Never found a mirror, never cared, never realized how that growth marked the long, slow flow of time here in Sanctuary. All of that simply hadn't been a priority. It had no place in his jangling, jumping thoughts.

Hadn't he already seen Corvus this day, though? There, waiting for him in the dark hangar. All full of pale, corpselike smiles and the right words in those worming lips and something in his hands.

( _the staff, the glowing golden staff that -_ )

Pain cut the thought off and he curled his hand until his fingernails tried to cut into the skin above his brow. He hissed in the co-mingled pain of his mind and his flesh, refusing to give in any further than that. He was exhausted, yet now also painfully awake. The same sharp awareness behind the intrusive whispers held a flash of memory. The green woman. The same one today. And yet that couldn't be right.

( _What's wrong with me? Why did I burn that village?)_

He struggled upright again, pulling at the bolts in the walls to try and get himself moving before he stopped, something at the edge of his senses. The almost physical, yet purely psychic weight of someone's eyes on him.

If it was Corvus, he was going to lunge right for the man. Beat the answers out of him, curl his strong - _perhaps not Asgardian strong, am I, Odin? but I'm more than strong enough for that rotting little bastard -_ fingers around the throat until the fishbelly skin ruptured and he read what he wanted, what he _needed_ on the exposed veins.

His breath still came ragged. That wasn't right either, the sheer rush of anger that threatened to fill his mouth with acid. His mouth was drawn open in a hateful sneer, that strange and wild smile of the jackal.

It was not Corvus, there in the doorway framed by the black. The anger drained into a hollow place inside him as his instincts flared again. His eyes, still fine and sharp through the pain, picked the profile of the figure out easily. Broad. _Huge,_ even, a brick of a man whose eyes glinted in the dark between them. He could feel the study being made of himself, his identity stripped bare somehow and laid out in the dark. Like an autopsy.

Fear settled into the emptiness left by the anger, making the sweat on his face feel ice cold. Loki knew instinctively who he beheld. The shadow 'king' who only showed himself when he chose and no sooner. A warlord on the edge of space, whose domain was the void and the corpses he left in his wake – a trail of corpses, Loki realized suddenly, he was contributing to. Without question.

"Come," said Thanos. "Corvus can wait. He _will_ wait, because I demand it. I hold the rule of Sanctuary and no other will supplant me. Do you understand, boy?"

"Yes," Loki said, half in a whisper. His lips felt numb under the prickling awareness that still burned its way through his mind. Everything was wrong. Nothing was right. There was a windstorm inside him.

"Down this hall, then. Do not speak to my men. Do not even bother to look at them. They believe themselves to be my guards. I have no need of this, but I permit them to serve. You will understand that, too."

"...Yes."

"Come, then. We'll talk. Briefly, this once, while you may listen with a clearer mind."

. . .

"I know what you truly are, boy." Thanos settled himself not on the floating stone and steel throne but a low, flat rock at the side of the dim hall lit only by the open blackness and purpled veils of space beyond. Great hands clasped together, each one shades of plum and violet under that weirding void. In the low light of the dying stars trapped in the wisps beyond Sanctuary, the gold of his armor glinted in decaying oranges and dulled yellows. Even there on a humbler seat, he loomed to fill the grand space around them. If not by his form alone, then by the spread of his shadow. A Titan, full and empowered by all his victories.

Loki said nothing at first. His head was stuck adrift, accompanied with a dull, staccato throb of pain. Had he truly wanted to meet the lord of Sanctuary? Is this what he sought? He looked at the giant of a man and felt sick. His words finally came, echoing within his own skull. "What am I?"

The cliff-like chin revealed a broad white grin. No jackals for Thanos, no wild dog snapping at the ankles of his prey. This was closer to a bear's simple features, instinctively fearless and sturdy. An apex predator; not a scavenger but the lord of beasts. "Something that belongs here. Amidst the menagerie of my banner. My family, built and housed and given name by my command. All of you are mine, made like me. All eventually reborn, pure, into this new and better life."

His throat hurt. He was awake for this brief moment, and, dear gods, he didn't want to be. The nightmare lived, thrumming alive all around him. "And what are you?"

"I'm a _monster_ , boy." Thanos leaned back, still showing his teeth in that easy, slow smile at the shudder that slid across Loki's flesh. "Because I was born as one, and I chose to be as one. I chose to be complete."

Loki looked away, into the depths of the black sky and its falling stars. Anything but at the great beast on the stone, content in his own identity. His own had long since started to slip, he realized dimly.

Monsters.

The pain traveled from his skull to his heart, squeezing it. If he passed out, Thanos would kill him. There was no question in him about this. He tried breathing regularly, realized each draw of breath was shallow and shot new sparks behind his eyes. That was when he knew he'd closed them fast against whatever this before him was. There was only the need for survival, drowning out all else.

"I stopped warring with myself a long time ago. Thought myself worthless once, if briefly. Held myself apart from them that were my kind, in a life others perceived as passivity and pacifism. I was born to greatness. A father named high among those eternal races among the hidden stars. My mother, a woman of wisdom and strength in equal measure. They expected everything from the universe, strove for it, earned it. And found me at the pinnacle of their conjoined joy."

Loki heard the titan shift slowly, making himself comfortable against the stone as he lazily drawled what he would of his tale.

"I was not what they sought in that beautiful family of their making. Within hours of my birth, my mother tried to kill me for the mistake I clearly was. For being a thing when they sought a jewel shaped to honor themselves. The memory is vague whisper, burnt onto the surface of my child's brain and alive in my adult dreams. I have never forgotten it. I wear it close, boy. She told me, later, as they tried to raise me as their son despite my... genetic deviancy. Admitted it, confessed that they forgave me for the failure of my birth and claimed they had learned to love. I wonder to this day if it was that act that shaped me, or if it was something in herself, in the blood. It took years for this secret to fester within me as I pretended to live as something else. Something that I was not. When I cut her corpse open, the day I left my home, I did not find the answers I sought there among her skeleton's bones or her DNA. The answers, I suppose, are in myself alone."

"Sometimes there are no answers." Tiny defiance, all he could muster. "Sometimes it's meaningless to search. There is only the question."

Rough, ragged laughter from the thing on the stone. "Then I'll shape the universe until it holds the meaning I demand, boy. Everything to its rightful, ordered pattern. Everything in life... and in death."

"You historian of it." The green woman's tangible chill, though she hid it well. The legend of the Reaper of Seeds. He'd seen the statues when the second team pulled them out, the tall, slim figure that was far from humanoid yet still eerily beautiful, wrapped in flowing robes carved out of some black mineral exclusive to that world. A fineness of art that was incongruous to the village's now-burnt simplicity.

 _I did that. Without question._ He fought to not moan aloud.

"Historian. Seeker. Small words. The vastness of the truth cannot be contained in simple language. She is the only one I love without reservation." The voice became musing. "I have slaughtered worlds just to catch a glimpse of Her robe as the fires gutter, seen Her drift against the shadows as lifeblood pools into scorched earth. I have strangled philosophers to see Her shining within their pupils as they give me their last treasured breath, and I have watched suns burn out only to become torn apart by Her great, skeletal hands in the deep black. She is beauty. She is the only thing that sustains above all else. Death is the only eternal force I must honor. I will chase Her until She accepts my love. To the very end. Of everything, if it must be."

The sickness in his belly threatened to overwhelm Loki, hot and churning.

"Your horror is not with me, though I have no doubt you will think it is for a little time yet. It is the distress of recognition, boy. Blood to blood. It is the realization that you have needed no mirror to see what you are. You are home at last, among your own kind. In my Sanctuary." The smile returned to the voice, the words rich and low and knowing. "The war in your mind is nothing but a war of acceptance. Understand this, and you will find some peace. In time, you will then find the purpose denied you in your old life. A road to follow, a great destiny. That is our way. Accept yourself, serve me, and there will be glory amidst the horror I put you to. These are the gifts I give all my children. There will be more. If you learn to serve freely."

Freely. The sickness turned cold, then hot again. Oh yes, he was yet bitterly aware. "And Corvus?"

"Corvus is my trusted general and he oversteps on occasion to amuse me. I laugh and he lives. Someday there will be no more laughter. He and I both know this. Until then he serves me. Freely. In glory and for the mastery of Death."

The heat inside him flared white hot, scratching at his throat. None of this was true. It couldn't be. "What has he done to me?"

"Nothing that would not be born from you eventually, I suppose. He is your sponsor here. He will remain so until I choose otherwise. A guide, if you like. To _ensure_ you find your feet on this better, more ordered road."

" _What has he done?_ " It was meant to be a roar of defiance, all of his remaining strength put behind it. It came out a frightened wail.

"You've kept your soul, Loki. You will not be hollowed out and left to what menial waste I choose to fill you with. Your mind, however, belongs to me." Thanos's armor scraped against the stone as he rose, drawing Loki's gaze to him unwillingly as he approached his throne above. "Until you accept this. Until you understand to your _bones_ what you truly are. Monster. Weapon. My favored son, set high amidst glory and blood."

"No." It came out in a strangle as the beast of a man settled into his seat.

"Your will is forever strong. It will not break. It will bend as a matter of due course when you ultimately recognize us _both_ for what we are." Thanos studied him from where he loomed against the stars, unimpressed by his attempt to fight back. The broad hands rested lightly along the armrests of the throne. "When you give me the gifts you hold within, you will then be whole. Until that day, Loki, you will be tended by Corvus. Accept _that,_ then. Accept it, if you cannot today realize you already stink of the corpses I bade you make. And there will be more of them. In this, you know you have no more choice. Today you made your decision. You rode to that world, burned that village to ash in my name. And you did it well. For that service, this conversation. I have honored you."

"I don't understand." Now a croak, his throat long since gone dry. "What gifts do I hold?"

"You're full of questions, boy. I seek and make my answers, and you hold only questions. Fitting enough for the learning child." Thanos leaned forward, his face cast in the bluish shadows of space. "You hold knowledge inside you. When you understand what it is, what I seek, you will give it to me of your own free will. You will understand that day why _you_ were chosen, taken from where you had been left, and what will become of the future. Chosen. Remember that. _I_ chose you, when others cast you away." Thanos turned away, the hovering throne spinning silently to give him a view of the wisps beyond the hidden realm. "We will not talk again for some time. Until you are ready to give me more than you already have. Go, then. Go below to Corvus, as you were bade. He will not wait patiently for you, even if your delay is my command. He has work to do."

 _I won't,_ he tried to say, only to find his mouth stuck soundlessly. His feet were already moving without his consent, his body dragging his trapped self away from the throne to that place below. _What choice? What free will?_

 _All lies._

 _This is all a lie._

The soft, small voice choked itself off as the other voices began to rise to tell him this was all right. That this was true and necessary, in fairness for what had been taken away from him by others. That the choice had been made for him, and it was good. All he had to do was give in.

Then there was only the pain for what seemed like days. And Corvus, wrapped in the black haze that clouded his mind and severed him in two.

Weeks left him in pieces.

There was so much he couldn't seem to remember.


	18. The Crab in the Bucket

18\. The Crab in the Bucket

. . .

Nebula let herself out of one of the tunnels that she frequently used to skulk Sanctuary in a less observable fashion, slinking herself out the ceiling hatch to drop silently to the floor as her legs and arms cracked and snapped back into position. The hidden paths were too tight in many zones and sublevels for any except the very small or snakelike to pass through, but she was both petite of form and, well, adaptable enough to fake the second at need.

She looked down at her hand with a deceptively calm expression as her fingers snapped back into humanoid shape instead of the wriggling, almost centipede like mass of motion she used to scuttle quietly. Every one of these adaptations hurt, if dully. The medics had made sure of that. Her musculature was plas and synthetic and capable of rending apart men three times her size. Her bones were reinforced titanium and other metals. But her mind was still real meat and many of the nerves had been kept in place as some kind of message to her about mortal frailty. She long since learned how to ignore pain, how to mute it down and channel it into something more useful. Fury, usually. Like now.

Her hand dropped to her side, her thumb flexing now and again as she considered what she'd observed. The new rooms above, on the floor intended for honored visitors – in other words, the ones that might leave alive and still in Thanos's favor – and the wings once meant for the sisters and other, now-lost siblings that had failed their Father's unceasing tests. How fancy they were, how aristocratic. They'd even been sparked up with the simulation of real, warm light alongside carefully created windows that bore a unique view of the rim of space beyond. Her teeth bared at the glimpse she'd stolen. Faint, dying stars, the wisps of the local nebulas, and the sparkling litter of ruined starships Thanos left scattered about as both warning and decoration. Like all things the warlord made, interesting to behold and also an implicit threat.

Neither she nor Gamora actually used their assigned rooms any longer, of course. Gamora had made a fortified nest near or even perhaps under the hangars that Nebula had never quite managed to find, and Nebula herself preferred to roam, never sleeping in the same place twice in a row. Nothing was safe for long in Sanctuary. Every day, she had to check her collection of spare parts carefully to ensure nobody sabotaged them to teach her another lesson about staying on her toes.

Being fifteen years old, trapped in her writhing, uncontrollable cybernetic body because of a 'faulty' wetwire replacement along the spinal column had done plenty to dig that lesson in deep. It had been Gamora that took pity on her. She tore out the bad wiring and replaced it without a word as Nebula stuttered out how to do it through the pain, then still real and living and white-hot. She'd slept for days after, her muscles waking her up now and again still twitching as the circuity reprogrammed itself correctly.

Had she told Thanos what her sister had done for her, it might have all been over then. Gamora, chained up and led to the edge of death for a moment of mercy. Nebula never told. It was the only gift she was ever going to give her sister freely. And it gave her the knowledge of her sister's weakness, which might be valuable someday. Gamora, the favorite daughter of Thanos. Secretly fragile. Merciful. With a buried kindness that might get her killed and taken out of the top seat at Thanos's side.

In the dark, alone, sometimes Nebula envied that 'flaw' in her. Mercy was far more dangerous than murder here in Thanos's home.

Nebula looked up towards the ceiling where far beyond lay the new boy's new lair, and then continued to stalk down the hall for more answers about what _that_ meant. She ignored the cubby where she'd left Kaluth's body that morning, the merc commander who had gone against his own grudging nature and given too much respect to the new boy. She'd waited the couple of weeks it would take for him to get complacent, of course. Stop looking over his shoulder for anyone he'd upset. Then she'd simply dropped out of one of her little hideaways and removed him for the implied insult. For his choice of favorites.

He was due for a replacement anyway.

. . .

Corvus Glaive's three carotid arteries were buried deep somewhere along the sides and back of his neck bones, not up closer to the front like many humanoids in the galaxy. Nebula spent enough time watching how he moved to be fairly sure that he at least had a reinforced protective collar buried somewhere under that hood he always wore. Probably connected to the straps of gold that criss-crossed his face, if so. Maybe he even had implanted plates, like the ones along his arms and what was visible of the fishbelly-pale chest. She suppressed a shudder. God, he was ugliness incarnate.

Just meant it took more digging to get at the lifeblood. Glaive was damned formidable in both a stand-up fight and the deadlier mess of a major melee, but his field of vision was crap in his favored getup and his choice of medium-ranged weapon meant he was dead if someone could get in close for longer than a second. Nebula was fast enough to do it, she'd just never gotten around to committing to the idea.

She toyed with the slender, pick-like blade in her hand, considering how she'd go about it. One hand to yank the hood, the other to go digging in for the blood. He had a few enhancements himself to complicate matters. She would have to sever all three arteries to actually get him down for good, then maybe destroy some of the cranial stuffing to be damn sure nobody managed to wind him up again like a toy. It was a valid risk.

She narrowed her eyes when the bastard of a man turned slightly to reveal his chin. Narrowed them further into angered slits when he spoke directly to her where she hid above in a containment grate. The venomous drop-spider of Sanctuary. "You came to... talk with us, little sister? I am always honored by the company of Thanos's children."

Nebula held her silence for about three seconds before thinking _to hell with it_. "Go fuck yourself. You know what I showed up to do."

"Have we _troubled_ you, little sister? Committed offense? I abase myself." He did, spreading his hands and lowering his head in a low, slow bow that was on the shady side of insulting.

Just for kicks, she shoved aside the well-oiled grate – a personal project of hers in the slow hours, all such grates in Sanctuary tended for this very reason – and dropped silently before him just to see if he'd twitch. She stayed there, hunkered and ready with the blade in her hands, as he did nothing more but rise to his normal height again with his hands coming together in a posture of what some race or another might consider respectful. "What are you up to, Glaive?"

"I serve my lordship, and all of Sanctuary. As always, nothing more and nothing less." The slithery voice held a note of courtliness. "If there is a... specific issue?"

"The new construction upstairs. The priority scheduling. The wardrobe. The way he keeps apart from us, like he's better. The _tours_. Twice as many culls as me this last month. The word's getting out there. New boy's putting on airs, Glaive, getting up above his station, and I don't like it. You're responsible. You took sponsorship of him. Means you pay the dues." She watched the thin lips pull into a smile, stayed hunkered in prime lunging position. "What's the deal?"

"The youngest children are always in need of the most care, Nebula. They're still delicate at this age. You know this."

"Bull. He's getting positioned to take my spot – if not Gamora's - and I think it's time someone should remind him about the high price of ambition in Sanctuary."

"Would that not be a mercy?"

Something about Glaive's smile was setting her off, like he knew more than she did. He probably did, the worthless piece of shit. Gamora's casual informant's visit some time back was enough of a hint to prove it out. She was being gamed by the weird old bastard for whatever reason and she didn't care. She bared her teeth at him, white and perfect and as fake as her smile. She knew he saw it full well through the hood and its close-fit veil. "It would be a _threat_."

"Ah," said Corvus, still mild and courtly. "So you come to me, cast in shadow as the boy's black star rises, and instead of seeking your own place amongst the sky of your father's great making, you are ready to carve others down."

"Others that are in my way. I'll climb over the corpses when they pile up, _that's_ how I'll rise." He didn't respond to that. She was certain that was a smirk on the cowled face. "You're in front of him, you're his sponsor. You go down first. If that's how it has to be, Glaive."

"And yet you never wholly strike for Gamora, not with all your power. Three sons and five daughters before these last new days of the family. You killed some of them yourself, at least one with that very blade you now hold, I think. But not Gamora." Corvus took a single step towards her. "You look for another's weakness, but will you not see your own?"

She hissed in a soft breath at the insult, rising up with the blade still in her hand.

"We can _strengthen_ you. When I am done with the boy."

She didn't realize her teeth had gone past a simple sneer and into outright feral rage until the cold air of Sanctuary whistled in between her teeth in the low, rattling sound of death's promise. After all these things done and the ways she had been remade, she would _die_ before letting Corvus touch her. She took a single step forward, the blade now held high.

"Nebula." The single sound, cold and heavy in a mighty throat. She froze as if a switch had gone off in her brain. In a way, that was true. _Father._

If she turned to behold him, she might die for whatever transgression he would claim of her. If she did not turn to honor his sudden arrival, she might die. But she would die defiant. Good enough. She didn't turn, but she allowed the fine, needle-like blade to lower. "Daddy," she said through her clenching teeth. That much irreverence she could get away with. "We were just having a little... talk."

"As I observe." Silence, as ominously weighted as his words. "You have failed a test, Nebula. You crave and fester and seek what you should not. You are hungry, and that hunger makes you unworthy today. This is a small failure, but a failure all the same. One to be remembered and held as a mark against you. But I alone offer mercy in Sanctuary, and as I love you, you will be offered an opportunity to recover from your mistake."

That got her to whirl on him, just sane enough to keep the blade lowered. Thanos looked back at her, his face as distant and serene as an asteroid alone in the void. "I will not be third, Father. I have never accepted that. Not ever. Not today."

"But you will not take first, either. As I love you, Nebula, hold and consider your words. Corvus's words. There are reasons Gamora is the favored child... and there are reasons Loki is being granted freely what you covet. You are not patient enough to understand what you have been shown and heard these last few months. You do not understand what you have been made to become and how you must yet shape yourself. Your fury needs further taming."

Her hand curled tighter around the hilt of the blade. _Tame this,_ she thought, her mind erratic and picturing herself lunging right for him in a moment of accepted madness. Under the fantasy was a thin line of fear. Such opportunities for 'redemption' were rare and always painful in one way or another. No exceptions.

Thanos waved his hand at her in simple dismissal. In it was the reminder that her lunge would end with that great fist tight around her throat. One squeeze was all he needed to end it.

 _If_ he permitted her to be ended. Out of nowhere, she remembered new boy, cold and blue on the slab while Corvus lurked above him like a carrion eater. Thanos had plenty of use for mindless pets. His thralls shuffled through the catacombs to prove that. She would no longer be Nebula, the daughter, if he turned away from her. She would be a thing set to menial tasks, a simple murder-bot given no soul of her own. No soul left to feed her hate.

There was a nightmare of green light that haunted her now and again. The light had not coursed over her own body, but another young man's whose name she either didn't know or couldn't remember. She had been young then, didn't know the full outcome. But she remembered to fear it, and she remembered the way the man had screamed in fright as he lost that core of himself. He didn't scream these days. He looked utterly empty, deep below where he ceaselessly scraped up the filth the Sakaraans left in their wake.

She took a single step back, more from memory's threat than the warlord before her now. She knew he saw. _Fine. I get it, Dad. It doesn't change anything._ "When is a gift not a gift, Daddy?"

"Answer the riddle yourself, beloved Nebula. It's a simple enough one."

"When it's a trap." Nebula scoffed as she put away the knife at last. That old refrain. She was beyond sick of it, sick of his games and his torments. His name was written on every painful piece of machinery installed into her body. She would give anything to scratch it out.

"Very good. Do not fret at Loki. His place is still being decided. Fret at your own, and do what you must to hold yourself high in my sight alone. You will attend tonight at my side, and we will discuss further then... your transgression." He disappeared from the doorway, oddly silent for all his great mass.

"Whatever." She glanced over her shoulder at Corvus, burying the dread she felt at her upcoming private meet with 'Father.' "Cool talk, crazy uncle Corvie. We'll do it again sometime. I promise."

"My lady, honored child." He bent again, low, and she comforted herself against the evening to come with the image of her pick-knife sliding through the top of his pale, almost translucent skull like a straw.

. . .

Nebula looked at her broken hand and its torn servos in the red-tinted shadows of the night's hidden resting place and understood the real lesson she had been given that day. The real 'gift.'

It wasn't that Loki, or Corvus, or even Gamora she had to practice the art of hating on. It wasn't them she had to watch and learn how to kill someday, their places to take for her own – although if she had to, she would. She'd realized full well tonight what the actual target was, even as she was forced to remember what real pain felt like. Worse, she'd been forced to remember _fear_. That had been the night's punishment for her transgression. Thanos knew her too deeply, just as if she were a real daughter and not some stolen prize set at his knee. He'd seen her too plainly in Corvus's presence.

She had watched the green light pour out of the Soul Stone in Thanos's fist once more. Not over her own form, to her primal and not well-hidden relief. But over another handful of those Sakaraan thralls deep in the catacombs. He made her watch from where she hunkered under one of those stolen relics of Death, the thralls' flickering fragments of broken life slipping away to feed the ravenous stone. He called the stone tame, if not finely tuned yet. She saw it as a black hole, something that would _never_ stop hungering for all their lives. One of a few things she truly feared in all the galaxy, above even Thanos himself. That complete loss of self, often leaving the living as something barely functional. Its victims took commands, true, but then hung there listless and without any desire nor will of their own. Drained unlife, the door between them and true Death shut, possibly forever. The meat sustained, the soul devoured into the void the stone had for a core.

And then he made her kill each one for the failure they were. Empty pottery, flawed, poorly tempered. Not the soul-bound, implicitly loyal and yet mindful creation he wanted. His control over the stone was not yet perfect, not even after all these years, so she was sent forward to take out the trash he'd made like a slave. No worthy fight. They stood there, waiting for her and her small knives. Perhaps if there were some tiny fragment of their selves left, they would be grateful to her for the act. That made it worse. Each one she killed, the fury grew hotter and hotter until she wasn't sure she was tearing them apart or herself.

Her fingers slowly knitted back together, the servos snapping roughly back into place with little jolts of cold discomfort all through her wrist. She felt like her face was frozen in some sort of animal grimace. Maybe it was. More than the hand had been torn up during her work of 'penitence.'

It was Daddy that had to die. It had _always_ been 'Daddy.'

All right, then. For that lesson, she finally would practice patience. Like a good student ought. Sooner or later, she'd find a way to do what she needed. Alone, if she had to. Or get someone to do it for her, keep that hand just that much further away from her own neck. She'd spit right into his broad, purple face as he died. The fantasy let her sleep. For a little while. Just a little.

She had another visit to make in the morning, this one to the reconstruction medics to resolve the rest of the damage she'd done to herself in her frenzy. If she was lucky, she might manage to kill one of them by the time it was all over.


	19. How Jackals Feed

19\. How Jackals Feed

. . .

Gamora slammed her way past the mute Sakaraan guards on either side of the private hall, shutting the double doors behind her and snapping the lock shut with a practiced hand. She continued to charge further into the room, approaching the long table made of a single block of black stone tunneled through with still-red lava veins yet flowing hot to be seen along just underneath its surface. Loki watched her approach from where he sat at the distant head of that grimly eye-catching piece of furniture, the goblet of wine half to his own lips with an expression blank save for a single dramatically arched eyebrow.

She flung the flexible datapad at him as hard as she could, scattering some of the smaller plates strewn across the surface of the table to the ground. She didn't care; her fury with him was too wild. "What the hell is this?"

Loki put the fine golden goblet down with a soft clink, laying his hand down next to it where she could see it plainly. No weapons close to hand. No threat in the grey eyes that seemed dimmer than usual in the dark pits that always marked his thinning, too-sharp face. _Of course he's not threatening me, it isn't his style unless absolutely necessary_ , she thought, still too furious to see the risk she was creating for herself. _Look at this atrocity. It's all him._ _I don't care what Father's done to him since I saw him last, or Corvus. This is his way of solving a 'problem.' His choice. The logical extension of the very first cull I saw him sent on. And all the others since._

"I'm sure you've read it full for yourself," Loki said, his voice deceptively mild. "I wouldn't dare to insult your intelligence, Gamora. It would be rude of me."

"Three worlds brought together in over a hundred years of peace, and you're going to set them up to _slaughter_ each other within a week."

"Of their own free will." It sounded ironic, coming from him. He smiled bitterly, as if amused by some private horrible joke. "Technically. All for Thanos."

Gamora stared at him, the fury taking a chilly edge. She let him hear it. "It isn't any kind of choice when you set it up to goad them blindly to your carefully arranged foregone conclusion. We're going to be going through the corpses longer than it'll take for this happen."

"To be fair, the plan necessitated a fair amount of anthropological, political, and sociological study previous to its presentation. It's not simply something I pulled from my arse over breakfast this morning, daughter of Thanos." He inclined his head in a posture of politeness so careful that she saw the sardonicism written plain in it.

"Oh, I'm sure you're very proud of that."

"You've got to put in the time if you want results." He shrugged as if he were discussing lab data instead. He reached out and picked up the datapad she'd tossed as if it interested him, let it drop again for emphasis. He leaned back in the chair, comfortable now. "Oh, what? You have a problem with what Thanos seeks? He wants that planetary network scoured, left bare for his study of his hidden Mistress and whatever else he thinks they might hold in their libraries. So, very well, I found a method to arrange it with almost no risk to us. Efficiently, as ever. That's all. He seems pleased enough with my suggestions, although the purification strafes you see in the finale weren't by my design. Seems to gild the lily overmuch, but, well, he's thorough. Nothing to be done for it. And yet here you are, tossing dinner around over the matter. Now _that's_ interesting."

"That's all." She caught herself. There was a warning here. Her own trap laid plain. She found a cover to pull over herself. Weak, but usable enough. A plausible deniability,wrapped alongside another knife of her own. "It's the plan itself. The way you put it together. It's not your fault or your responsibility this way, is it? You'll put them into action, you've put the plan before Thanos, and he adds what violence he will to ensure it's a genocide. But none of the blood is on _your_ hands this way, is it? You're untouched. Not very warrior-like. Not what Thanos typically endorses – much less Asgard, if I'm remembering your home territory correctly. I'd call it _cowardly_ , Loki."

Something passed across his face, too quick for even her to catch this time. His hands clenched tight and for a moment her instincts swore he was going to go for a knife. She braced herself, muscles tensing to give herself room for a counter if necessary. Then it passed, replaced with a thin and mocking smile. "I still prefer to think of it as opportunistic. Tactical, perhaps. As opposed to your more _standard_ methods of giving him what he wants. The blood you and your sister dip yourselves in every time you're sent out to serve? I'm not sure there's that great or deep a difference between us. Only the manner in which we act changes."

"That blood is still on you, even at a distance. Where we differ is you pretend to be more. You're no warrior. You're just a murderer, Loki."

"And yet I sleep fine, my pride intact. With my hands more than clean enough." He shoved himself back in the chair as if ready to rise, his face tensing in a way that made the angles of his face seem even more skull-like.

She saw the lie in his words printed loud in the lines of his face, shot it back at him with a sneer. "You don't sleep. I wonder what haunts you so much that you can't?"

Real fury came into his face at the challenge, lighting up the grey eyes and their almost buried tint of green. He knocked over the wine goblet as he did rise this time, ignoring it as he strode abruptly away from her and out of the dining room. She thought he was going to leave without another word until he paused at the door she'd only just come through.

He didn't turn all the way. Just enough to let her see the hollowed cheekbones high upon his face and the way the shadows caught across them. _You've won, Father. Just look at him. If he's not complete by your standards yet, it'll be soon._ "What?" she said, her voice still frozen cold in her disgust for him.

"And yet, Gamora. And yet, you won't change anything about what's to come. Haven't done a damn thing about it to this point. You won't stand in the way of this plan, nor will you stop any of us from committing to it. Who's been the coward here?" He cracked open the door, that false charm of his returning to veil what he really felt. "A favor, then, and bear in mind I'll remember. I won't tell Thanos about our talk. I fear he might take it... poorly."

When the door shut again behind him, she picked up the entire sweet-smelling pitcher of mead and threw it with all her force at the cold stone. Her breath came ragged and short, full of hate.

It wasn't just the plan he'd come up with any longer. It was so much more than that. Somewhere in the white frenzy that blanked her mind, she saw and understood the worst of it.

He was right. She had done _nothing,_ all for her own survival.

. . .

Thanos didn't set Gamora to watch over the operation. He put Corvus Glaive in command of the ships hidden carefully amongst a small asteroid belt around the targets, relaying the progression of Loki's plan over the days and nights it took for a stray word and a carefully arranged 'random' terroristic explosion to begin to unravel decades of diplomacy between the small network of worlds. Thanos himself rested in one of these ships, no doubt at ease and content with the progress of his children's efforts.

She watched it all happen anyway. She forced herself to read every one of the updates from the small fortified lair she'd built deep in the black stones of Sanctuary's undercroft, close to where the skeletons were kept. The way the politicians began to tear each other apart in the need to cast blame on their shared communities and the interlocking cultures. Similarities became insurmountable differences within days while diplomacy entered a deadlock.

The end began when more bombings started – not through any direct cause of the plan, but in enraged retaliation for the fatal attack on a well-loved diplomat on the streets of one of the worlds. The worst the man had done was try to plea to continue the peace between the trio. An agent apparently from one of the other worlds slipped in through the crowd and drove a blade into his chest. She knew where the blade had come from and how he'd gotten through tight security. Another carefully selected chess-move needed to cause a war. The rest was natural chaos. Loki's specialty.

That was the flashpoint the now-angry mob needed; rising up to avenge his death and forgetting in their sorrow and fear the very cause he'd died for. Long-buried armaments came out to be passed through ad-hoc militias that sprang up everywhere. Whispers entered the populace, some perfectly natural, a few carefully arranged by the game's own master at and above Corvus's side. Street battles began by the week's end, the natural populace of a given world banding together to violently drive what they now perceived as interlopers out.

When these long-term residents defended themselves, claiming that they were just as much part of their chosen world as their own, they were killed in their homes. Retaliations happened within hours, leaving more innocents dead. So it continued, a virus of pure hate, unstoppable now as other weapons were considered. Decisive ones. The three worlds were headed towards a collision course with each other that should have taken years, collapsed into days instead, and they charged ahead as one doomed spirit, ironic and forever lost. Destruction, mutually assured.

Loki's plan was perfect. Thanos himself broadcast the notice of a virtually 'bloodless' victory across Sanctuary's network when it was over, the deep voice booming with rare pride. He would walk the surface of the sundered worlds himself, personally, as the Chitauri idled through the shellshocked survivors to mop up what they had to. He himself would walk and view what his newly favored son had made in his name, and he would with his own hands collect not only the dead's artifacts from their museums and repositories, but the books of their legends. A great honor for all involved.

Gamora lifted her head when the internal network feed added that Loki himself would be attending at the warlord's side. In amidst the sickness that laid heavy in her stomach, she found some grim and unwanted satisfaction. _Go on, then. Get a good look at what you did. Go look at the bodies, since you wouldn't go into the pass yourself that first time. I noticed that, too. Thanos will make you – he'll use it to show you the same thing I did, only he'll make you think you should be proud of what you've done. Will you see that trap? I doubt it. Your final trap is pride, but he won't kill you for it. He'll just cage you up and let you rot in his service and you'll think all is fine and well, won't you? You'll walk away from these worlds at peace with yourself._

 _And then, maybe you should try to get some sleep. Just once. It'll make this easier for me._

She pulled her box of knives out from under the cot, picking up each one in turn and checking its heft and balance while she made certain she would commit to this final choice. She _had_ to commit to it. The only solution she had left to fix what Thanos had created. If there had been a chance to stop it all earlier, she'd missed it.

Lost it, more like, amidst her own fear of being caught. Loki was right. She had to accept that. So there was only this, for better or worse. Fix her own mistakes as well. And then find a way out, somehow, before Thanos saw the 'flaw' in her at last and killed all her secret hopes.

Forget Nebula's promise. She hadn't even seen her sister since the word of some minor 'transgression' against Thanos had reached her. Tried not to worry about it – that too was a weakness someone would exploit against her if they knew. Even Nebula herself might.

No. She was going to have to kill Loki herself. _After_ he saw what he'd done to three innocent worlds, who had done nothing else but hold something Thanos had wanted.


	20. Between Man and Lion

20\. Between Man and Lion

. . .

The world's capital was empty, except for the burnt shadows and fluttering ash left behind. An honor guard stood at either side of the tall central gates, their horrific insectoid heads bowed as Thanos himself approached in a slow and meticulous stride. He locked eyes with one of the more humanoid mercenary attendants, who rushed over to confirm that the city itself had been sanitized of life one way or another. The short and devastating war forced upon them, or via the Chitauri's own finalizing strafes. Whether or not the bodies scattering the city had been moved was meaningless to Thanos. They were dead. Their hollow eyes could not behold what was about to happen to the things they kept in life.

He preferred to be seen by the living only at _his_ choosing. Men feared more deeply what they could only imagine, and fear was a tool Thanos admired a great deal. To that end he controlled all communications and selected carefully when and where he walked, and seldom in daylight as he did today. _This_ was good, however. This was a place of Death alone now, well made. May She see him clear under that distant white sun that stared mindlessly down at three all but silent worlds.

The architect of that silence followed close in his wake, Loki's thinning face sealed tight against whatever he thought or felt about the display before him. He had been visibly surprised by the honor of his place beside Thanos, that much was true. The rest was a mystery kept tight behind that pale face. Thanos found this all quite amusing, honoring the mercenary attendant with a toothsome and unpleasant smile before gesturing to him to have the gates opened.

They creaked slowly, the heat of the sanitation protocols having caused their hinges to bend a little out of joint. When he saw the old and tangling spires of the dead alien city beyond, Thanos lifted his head to address the troops gathered. "Again, we stand amidst the fields of the dead that we have made, and in them I find the beauty I seek. In the silence of the ruined cities is a purity that once only nature itself could make in slow time. We bring it by our own hands now, shaping the universe into a perfect order. A closed circle, the shape of the hem of Death's robe. Where there has been life, only She now walks. We lay this carpet for Her, in honor and in service, and in adoration. Only to Her, who stands supreme above all else."

He let his voice trail off, satisfied when his short speech was replaced by the shouts, clacks, and pleased hissings of all those that served him. They trooped ahead to guide his way, a mark of respect and abasement. From behind was still only the silence. It did not concern him that Loki was at his back. Betrayal was not yet recreated fully in the boy. Not yet. Thanos waved off the attendants and strode forward into the city to see it for himself.

. . .

"Beautiful," murmured Thanos. Chitauri knelt in unison as he passed through the streets narrowed with piled up dead. They would be burned at nightfall, one more offering to Her. "Utterly beautiful."

He paused at one of these horrible monuments, reaching out to cup the tiny, triangular face of a dead humanoid in his much larger hand. A broad thumb peeled the eye open to reveal the filmy red of the iris underneath, unconcerned with the silver blood that stained his fingernails as he did so. He spoke over his shoulder, not looking back at his newest son. "That haze you see across the surface of the eye. It is physical, of course, but also representative of the only great mystery that matters. There is a single second between the moment the light leaves and the haze comes where you can see beyond the final veil, boy. I have peeked there, stolen a secret or two, and it is all wondrous."

Loki still said nothing.

"Are you not proud?" Thanos let the face go, resuming his stride along the streets towards the now-silent cultural district. "This is a great work, one that will see your name known as one of my house among the starways. You will be feared for this. Where you walk, they will know to tremble."

Loki rustled along in his wake, the long black coat whispering against tall wrapped boots to give his only answer.

Was this at last outright defiance, then, faced with what he'd made? Was that old will being unearthed once more to try and fight for him, when clinical distance could not save him? Oh, he hoped. "You will speak an answer to me, boy, or find yourself tested."

He kept his voice low, but Loki answered at last in a soft monotone. "I have been told I question too much at the expense of finding my own answers. This is the mistake of the young."

Thanos snorted at the political answer and looked at the young man to see what he might find there. The pale face was held high, as if still the proud and noble son of kings. Thanos saw it for what it truly was – denial. His sunken eyes were cast only towards the horizon; the twisting spires of the dead world's central capitol. Not at what lay at his feet. He turned fully, gripping Loki by the shoulder and forcing him towards an alley choked with the smells of the dead. "There are your answers, Loki. Look at _them_ and tell me what you find."

The sleek black head turned away, strands of oily hair stuck fast to his cheek by both struggle and hot, quick wind. "Only the dead," he spat, clearly finding it difficult to breathe against the rank hell that wind carried with it.

" _Only._ Do you not see? Walk by yourself, ahead of my road. Break my path for me, and look more carefully as you travel. I will question you again. Your answer will matter, boy." He shoved Loki forward, towards the spires. He didn't let go yet. "Not merely the one you speak, but the one I see in your eye. I'll choke it out of you if I must. Walk. Or stagger, that matters not at all."

"No."

Thanos grinned, furious and delighted both. His hand tightened on Loki's shoulder until the teeth bared in the pale face. "No. You already see. You've been lying to yourself, boy, but you think you lie to me."

"I'm no-"

He cut off the denial with a single firm shake, one that would break a lesser being. This one was made of firmer stuff. The limits were known to him, well-tested. Still, Loki hissed in pain. " _You_ made this. Not anyone else. Not some distant twin brought here to pretend and absolve you. You, pieces of yourself brought to light to serve in my name. Look at it. _Look at it_!" Thanos flung the man directly towards a pile of bodies just ahead, grinning wider in something near to joy as Loki reached out to try and stop his fall. Instead, his arm and its fine gold bracer sunk deep into the fetid pile. His face was frozen in horror. "These are _your_ children now, just as you are mine."

"I had no choice!"

It was lovely, that whimper. "There's always a choice, boy. Even in the dark. Else you would have died there before I could take you, stayed utterly beyond the reach of my machines and my healers. Something in you wanted to live more than the weak thing that wanted to die. We _monsters_ are made of such will. We are driven to live."

"No." Again, that one stab at his mind's freedom. This time it came out strangled.

"What do _you_ see in their eyes, Loki? What's there? Tell me the truth or you're going to die here instead, put to rest amongst what you made. Admit what you see to me and live." He took a single step forward, ensuring that Loki knew that of the two of them, Thanos only ever spoke his own kind of truth. "Speak."

Loki stared up at him. Somewhere in the dull grey was that tiny remaining speck of green. Thanos looked deep for it, looked for whatever the boy thought he could hide in that single place and found it. Something richer and fuller than hate. Utter loathing. Despair. And disgust. All of it turned beautifully, perfectly inward. Completion, at last. A sharp and perfect weapon.

"My reflection," said Loki. His voice was dead cold, the sound of the last schism in a no longer healthy mind.

Thanos smiled, well-pleased with what he had seen made. "Get up then. Let us finish our walk. There is one more thing you must see before I let you rest."

. . .

He tried to walk normally, as if nothing unusual had occurred. Thanos's broad back was before him, but the idea of striking at it was so distant a thought it may as well have belonged to someone else instead. He was stuck instead in that moment of frozen horror, his hands filthy from the pile of corpses he'd been shoved into. He looked down at them from time to time, his thoughts disjointed and yet full of a broken, unwanted understanding.

 _My hands are bloody. Why?_

His breath came, rattling and cold and filled with the answer.

 _They were always bloody. Always._

Long white fingers clenched tight until he tore into his palms and added his blood to the blood of the dead where they stained him. Gamora, too, had been carrying a truth.

 _I did this._

Under control, some of it, yes. But how much of it?

Images mixed in his head, followed by those sharp lances of pain that seemed more familiar to him now than the remnants of his long ago life. Corvus's study. The blood that had dried into the lines and whorls of his hands. Now his hands flexed again, the buried memory coming to life. The red and senseless rage, goaded alight by the torturer.

 _That wasn't me._

No. No, that had been... it wasn't all there. But the first cull had been his to command. He'd gone through with it, aware enough then to make the choice with some slight freedom as to his method. Why? Why hadn't he questioned it?

 _I... didn't have a choice. A king called, and I served._

He shuddered as he walked. Maybe that was even true. Everything was tangled together in his mind. Thanos had given him one lie to be found, if unintended. He grasped at it, unraveling as he stared at his bloody hands. There _were_ two Lokis buried here in a way, one small and quiet prince who still remembered all his questions, and the other who wanted only to survive and would do anything for it. Yes, the monster Thanos wanted to draw out of him. _That_ one remembered what it was like to die and would fight to live at any cost. Crawl over any body to do it. That one made the blackest choices of his own will. That one had selected the cull, as a way to buy his own safety against whatever it was he wasn't fully remembering. Had he been pushed into this division of self? Perhaps. And would he not have done it eventually without being pushed, if given enough motivation and freedom? Also... perhaps.

Everything else was lost in a scream of silent wind. No certainties. Only the questions, heavy and drowning.

He felt like his mind was tearing itself to pieces under the combined weight of his confusion and half-realized untruths. The only way to survive the storm was allow only one piece of himself to continue on. He knew which one would do it. The one that had won out so far. One was a faded ghost, having all but accepted his death in the void at the edge of Asgard. All _that_ pale outcast had were the whispers in the dark, Loki believed, only capable now of screaming in dreams. The other was the stronger, he was certain. That one saw himself unfettered, maddened, with nothing else left to lose. All he held was that nearly mindless drive to live, not much different than an animal. After his security had been ensured, perhaps he could consider what else to do with that reclaimed life. What else had been taken from him, what purpose for this sundered second life could he claim?

After all, he _was_ yet a prince. And a prince needed a realm.

Thanos stopped walking. Loki looked up at the broad back, stunned otherwise blank by the war inside himself. "Look," said the warlord, in a voice so ghastly soft it was almost tender. The thick purple hand raised in a gesture so sincere that it was worshipful. "The heart of what I seek. They knew it well here. The old legend, proven true. _My_ legend. My pathway to Her side."

Thanos stepped aside to let him see the great mural carved deep into the black stone of the dead world's central spire. Six figures, each a symbolic representation of great power, each one enameled deep with flecks of bright and wild color. Beautifully made whorls connected them, each to each, in eternal and perfectly geometric spirals known well by all the galaxy's mathematicians. He spread his hand toward it, fingers splayed to show how each stone could match his grasp. "Infinity itself, Loki. This... map. It is a crucial tool. A thing I have sought for years, a blueprint for how the six must be in balance when brought together. The books of its making are buried among these three worlds, their great and hidden treasure. Today, they belong to me. I cannot use this work yet, but the wall will be torn free and made mine for future study. As will those tomes. For that grand and future day when I hold the universe entire in my fist." Thanos's hand closed to demonstrate, the thin golden gauntlet he wore reflecting all the colors of the etched stones.

Loki couldn't tear his gaze from one of the carvings; a light blue and perfectly cubed shape that haunted its way out of a nearly lost memory. He knew that one, felt his breath catch in his throat sharp enough to draw Thanos's speculating eye back to his face. An artifact older even than those Jotun scraps that had helped cast him down into the darkness, a thing so powerful that Odin himself had ordered it sealed away millennia ago to prevent future's temptation. Guarded by those beings too small and weak to ever harness it in full, who would never know how grand a treasure slept among them. He knew so many of these legends, what the blue stone could do when wielded. "My lord," he rasped, almost teetering. He couldn't hide what he saw. The memories spilled out of him to be laid bare for the warlord's taking.

"What do _you_ see here?"

 _There is still a choice_ , whispered the dead piece of himself, desperate to find some other road to flee down. It scrabbled for purchase while the monster inside tried to bury it. _There is no choice_ , said that other self, believing he was fully in command now. The war was fought in the silences instead. _There's nothing left._ He tried to not choke, those bloody hands of his flexing slowly in the air.

"The future," managed Loki, knowing at last what gift he was meant to give the mad warlord. The only chance to buy that brutal survivor that burrowed inside him his freedom. A way to slip Corvus Glaive's awful grasp and stand more firmly on his own feet. With that much taken back, whispered the survivor, he could assess the damage done to him.

 _Perhaps even find some payback for all the betrayals wrought onto me_ , suggested the monster. _Yes, pay it all back. To every member of my 'family' that had ever pushed me into this scrap of black hell._ Under the rage was another whisper, still defiant, and he ignored it completely. "I can bring it closer."

"Yes, my son," said Thanos. He smiled slowly. "You can."


	21. Nothing More Dismal than Man

21\. Nothing More Dismal than Man

. . .

Gamora slunk through the upper residential floors with her back against the wall, the last stretch of road between her and the door of her target's lair. He disappeared within those fine new quarters almost a week ago and had not been seen since. She knew he was inside, however. Alive. And now well-favored by Thanos, who had declared him a son with full rights and name upon returning from the last great culling. Nebula, cold and furious over some private matter of her own, had given her that information cheaply enough as she'd stalked by one morning. She'd apparently heard him rustling in there at odd hours as she passed by her own quarters, and more than once saw Corvus Glaive hurrying away with a pinched face that suggested his own plans had been knocked awry. _That_ detail had made her happy.

She was smart enough to not ask Nebula why she had gone anywhere near their 'childhood' homes, and smart enough to see that it was the truth she'd been given. No doubt she'd have to pay for the favor later. Little ever came for free between the sisters. Perhaps all it came down to was that Nebula hoped for this outcome; that Gamora was going to step up and take the kill herself for once.

The door to Loki's private rooms was a deceptively simple variant of both electric deadlock and genetic keypad. The deadlock was easy. Her smallest knife slipped into the seam of the door and made a live connection she could manipulate. A wire-kit she'd long ago liberated from weapons stores finished the first half of the unlock. The genetic keypad would have been trickier, save for the fact that _every_ such pad in Sanctuary had two 'skeleton keys'. Thanos himself... and Corvus Glaive. She'd easily collected a sample of his blood for her expansive 'keychain.' A night long ago when Corvus had allowed a mercenary captain to duel him for the right to serve Thanos. The captain had successfully bloodied him – and paid for the victory with his life, screaming.

She'd been the one to leave with the real prize, however. It had served her well before, though neither man was foolish enough to leave their best secrets under these comparatively easier locks. The key served well again tonight, silently unsealing the inner lock and, for a bonus, killing any alerts that might have gone off. Such was the nature of the torturer's privileged access. Everyone had their own method for skulking the halls as invisibly as possible. Gamora liked to borrow from all of them.

Careful hands kept the door from making noise as she slithered her way inside, using her body to block any light from the hall. The rooms within were dark and vast; the only light coming from the flicker of the great window in the central space. A parlor, she assumed. Her eyes, given slight amounts of low-light modding, picked out the pitfalls of scattered furniture easily. Cushioned or no, clipping any of them might give her away. To the east room was a currently unlit study, strewn about its floor with a number of books. She studied them, wondering how recent the mess was and which tomes might have been thrown at Glaive in some private frenzy. The bedchamber, also currently darkened, would then be west. It didn't matter if he slept or not. Only that he be surprised enough to be caught vulnerable.

Gamora stayed low and passed through the silence like a ghost, no footfall from her soft-soled shoes and nothing left out of place to give her away. The perfect assassin, just as she'd been trained since being reborn into this broken world of Thanos's make. All she had to do was find where in the room he might lay, and she could do that much easily. The dull grey knife was held light in her hand; sharp as glass, stronger than steel, and made to never catch an unlucky glint of light. Only the needling tip held the barest glint of silvery metal, and even that muted. The hilt was wrapped in leather so soft it would never squeak in her hand to give her away.

There he was. Just a shape upon a fine and long chaise, a lump laying prone in the blackness. One more step into the room. Then another. She paused at the soft rasp in the air, instincts searching for any immediate danger to herself.

"Do it."

The sudden, cold rattle of his voice breaking the silence caused Gamora to reach out instantly with her empty hand to slap at the wall controls. Worst case, said those old and well trained instincts, the sudden glare might stumble any attack from him. No such assault came. Soft light filled the room and his pale, waxy face turned away from its source high above her. The green and black tunic he wore was stained through with sweat, the once fine and pretty prince now utterly the picture of some kind of inner illness. She kept the knife ready, watching him. He didn't otherwise move, not even when she rose from her stalking pose to loom over him. He whispered the same two words again, desperate now.

She stared, missing nothing this time. His eyes were sunk too deep in his bony, shadowed face, but they glittered a brilliant green. The deep despair in them startled her, somehow reminding her of that first glance of real and deadly intelligence as he passed her silently in the halls. Almost as if he had been someone else then – and someone else now. Out loud she asked her question _,_ making it a command. "Why?"

"You sound like _him_ when you speak your words like that." His voice was still a bruised rattle. "How fine. Follow it up with a threat. That's only right." The gaze flickered up to her, brittle and bright, before darting away again when she kept her silence. "They've taken from me what they wanted after all. Everything is in a hurry. That Selvig man is already positioned. I've seen through him – with Corvus's aid, of course. Good old Corvus." He sneered. "One little nudge to action for the scientist, one choice of position, just like the last plan I came up with. It won't be long now. A few more weeks to finish the preparations. A month to finish organizing the selected troops into a proper little command structure. And to ensure _I'm_ ready, of course. By Corvus's high standards. Then the door will open and they'll push me through. Like a bomb dropped from a warship."

Gamora didn't understand much of what that meant, but the import was plain to be read. Thanos's nonsensical, genocidal quest for the secrets of the universe itself was an old story to her. This was simple enough. Loki had become part of a new chapter. Her jaw tensed and she could feel sweat begin to damped the hilt of the knife still in her hand. She resettled her grip around it, noticing the way he kept flickering his own gaze towards its fine edge. Her chin jutted at him in an accusation. "Taken, or did you give up and make it a fine little gift?"

"Everyone gives up here."

"Not everyone, Loki."

He began to laugh at her firm words, hollow and wild. "Oh, yes, Gamora. I forgot, you stand alone amongst the rubble of Sanctuary. Perfect and untouched and whole, all your choices just and true and noble. You're no monster, not like the rest of us _family_. Except for your _own_ name writ high amongst the galaxy's most hated beings. Yes, I'm quite sure you got yourself there via your good and merciful works. Are we not both cowards by another's measure? I've asked before, I think, and found no answer given."

She could feel her face turning hot, forced herself into that slow and meditative breathing. He was goading her, blatantly feeding on her plain distaste and hate for him.

Another stolen glance, this one almost furious when he saw she still wasn't moving. " _Do it,_ " he hissed. He was defenseless, just like she'd hoped. His pale throat lay bare, framed by the virescent tunic. The black and gold armor was in a messy pile in the corner, disregarded for now. "I'm still falling, you know. I never stopped."

 _Yes. They broke him. Some of it might even be my fault. If I could have helped him, I just never tried. It's too late now. This isn't the man that woke up on the slab anymore, not all of him. They broke him down until they exposed the bone, and then he did the rest himself. I think I'm watching him die._ Pity joined hate, took both emotions deeper to where they always twinned inside herself. It wasn't only on her to have changed this, she told herself. There _were_ choices, she believed. Even awful ones.

 _I have to get out of here. Away from all of this._ She kept staring down at him, her face shadowed like some vengeful spirit. "Another dead world to make?"

"Oh, no." His teeth bared at her, the half-insane mockery of a smile. "I'm getting what I have always deserved, Gamora, a living kingdom to make my own. All I have to do for it is sell out the rest of the universe." The black eyebrow arched, bitter irony returning to deeply crease his face. "I suppose you might hope this plan... is not as good as my last."

"What does that mean?"

"What it _always_ means. What _Father_ wants, he will gain in time. If you get in the way of him, he'll break you apart and stand in the shadows of where you've been. That's the only answer to anything anymore." Another laugh, the short bark of the mad dog. She nodded slowly at it, ignoring that he'd evaded the real question. "Stop me. This time, Gamora, if there is any mercy buried in you, _stop me_. It'll buy the space of an extra breath, nothing more. If _I_ don't go, they'll prepare Corvus himself." He bared his teeth once more. "He won't take a rulership, of course. He'll just scorch that pitiful realm to the stones. But another breath of life is just as valuable as gold, isn't it? You'll give that tiny race a little more time to be free."

Gamora shook her head and took a step towards him, took another when he didn't flinch. Choices mattered. This wasn't the right one, it would drag her down with him. He had, by accident, shown her the truth. It was time to find her own way out from hell. Stop waiting on something else to change and get walking on her own two feet.

"I can't save you, Loki," she said at last, laying the bare knife on the stand next to him. "Do it yourself."

He said nothing to that as she left.

. . .

Loki remained still in the silence of her departure, waving the lights back off with a single gesture so that he could wrap himself in the comforting dark instead. Full dark, with no stars to be seen or to be seen and judged by. The last hour's dream of that old ghost, who had been reborn into new and forced life as something else. He sat there quietly as time ticked by in slow agony, waiting for Glaive to risk another approach in the guts of the third cycle while most others rested. It wouldn't be much of a wait now, he thought. It didn't matter; the torturer's real work was long since done. It was all over but the screaming. He would submit, if only to live. If only to eventually take for himself what he could.

There was nowhere else to go, not for someone like him. There was only Sanctuary.

He glanced at the table to his side and saw the shape laid across it, a fine and small blade with a point made to drive deeply into the heart and free its richer, more crucial blood. Should its user strike well enough, it could kill him easily. Tear open the arteries neatly and hold them asunder for long enough to keep him from recovering. Good enough for Asgardians. Good enough for monsters.

He reached out and picked up the knife, testing its heft and balance for himself. Yes, there was a choice implicit in the sharpness of its silvered tip. But it was a choice he'd already made.

He would survive. He had to. For as long as he could.

Because the next time he died, he would be damned. Hela made few bargains with his kind, should the legend hold any truth. He doubted that. Besides the mysticism of his youth, he had long since decided he had little faith in what mercy lay on the other side of the last door. There would be no wake for his second life, no boat intended to rest among the stars. There may not have been once before. That hope had been put aside. He doubted that any would mourn him now.

As for Death Herself? Loki smiled, a meaningless expression empty of any hint of the irony the future had in store for him. What would be the odds She would ever show any kindness to _him_? A murderer, a beast who had already sent thousands of lives Her way, and who had more such black work to come in the days ahead.

 _I suppose all I can truly hope for is the day the warlord finds you, good Mistress,_ he thought. _Won't that be romantic?_

He almost put the knife aside, ready to leave it for someone else to find should the day come that he didn't return to these trapped rooms and their utter lack of peace. Perhaps it would eventually return to its owner's hand that way. Instead, after a long moment of consideration, he tossed it across the room to land upon the artless pile of his armor in the corner.

Like him, perhaps it would find some purpose elsewhere down the line. As weapons do.

Loki sighed and shut his eyes, and he did not sleep as he waited for the other darkness to come and claim him.


	22. What Rough Beast

22\. What Rough Beast

. . .

"The Tesseract has awakened. It is on a little world. A human world." Corvus Glaive looked up to Thanos where he sat easily on his floating throne at the edge of the galaxy. Beyond him stretched the eternity of space, black and deep and littered with all the things Thanos had destroyed to prove that he could love. Glaive smiled at the synchronicity. Space itself, all for his great lord. "They would wield its power, but our ally knows its workings as they never will. He is ready to lead. The Chitauri will follow."

"Ally. Weapon, I name him. My favored son, that falling star. A success, Corvus. My third living child, alive, where so many others have shriveled and died." The throne spun gently through the air to allow the warlord to regard the pale face of his general. Thanos permitted a slow and knowing smile. "You have broken and remade him well. He has grown as I desired. You will be honored for this, Corvus Glaive, should the plan to take the Stone from these little beings succeed. I will put you high over the next worm to bring me what I seek. This is my promise."

"Loki is... yet willful, my lord." Corvus bowed his head deeply to soften his warning. The man's damnable _will_. A few weeks ago, just after the magnificent plan to allow three worlds to do their own hard work for them, he'd thought he'd lost control over the experiment entirely. Thanos had been less concerned about the development, his word allowing the boy to work through his seeming tantrum. Glaive suspected the sisters at fault in this; some gambit to rebalance the scales. Thanos would hear nothing of it.

Regardless. For now, all seemed stable. The last approach had found the boy calmly waiting for him, the flames of his ire with Glaive now guttered out. Staring, only, with those damnably sharp eyes of his. He set it aside. Of course Loki was broken now. There would be no further trouble. Corvus held great pride in his work. "I must retain close watch over him. With the scepter in his hands now and not mine, there is the risk of certain... errors entering the scenario. Chaos, and not your better order. The staff's influence over him may fade as he comes to understand its workings upon others. Fear and pain will keep him in line, however, if the stone in its cage might not. Of this, I am convinced. He will not break from your lord's grasp. Not this day. Not ever."

Thanos laughed, rich and bellicose, apparently amused by his clear pride. Corvus faltered at the sound before continuing, making a concentrated effort to put all his strength back into his words. His great lord's whims were not his to understand, only to fear and respect. "The world will be his. The universe yours. And the humans, what can they do but _burn_?"

Thanos turned away again, still laughing in that deep, threatening rumble. "We will see. They are a small matter, for it is the ripples I ultimately wish to observe. But now, Corvus, I find we hold some time for a new amusement. Send word to that Kree boy, but make him wait upon my response in all things. I am willing to humor his campaign going forward, regardless of this day's outcome. _If_ he pleases me and understands patience, I will put my daughters to his use. They have been waylaid too long by our need to focus on my new son. It is time to put them high in my sight once more. The galaxy must not forget the power of my house. They will be granted the gift of the names of all my children."

Corvus bowed low enough to nearly scrape the old stones with his caged face. "My lord," he said. "Will he be your next, then?"

"Petty little Ronan, as another one of my great works?" Thanos chuckled anew, this time dour and dismissive. "He is disposable. I have witnessed small things like him before. I will not have our time wasted. A minor ally, a stepping-stone to what I seek. Nothing more." He gestured to Corvus, the topic sealed. "Send word also to those of ours that watch the collector in Knowhere to move closer to him, but ensure they do so discreetly. I have bought his trinkets in the past and seen his face clearly enough to mistrust his ambitions. He knows too much and sells too dear. However. He may yet be of some use in discovering the rest of the Stones. Be my eye there when this day's work is complete. See what now he peddles."

"Yes, my lord. It will be done. All for you."

. . .

Nebula curled within the filthy, depowered conduit with her cheek laid soft against her arm as if daydreaming, instead watching the Chitauri below as they hunkered roughly in military formation. Here they would wait among their air-chariots and the handful of softly squealing wyrmnoughts until they received the order to muster out to the overwatch command vessel. All depended on the timeline now, all waited on Loki's progress towards what Father wanted.

She wanted to watch him leave, in her own way and for her own reasons. She'd seen murder in Gamora's eyes one night, fed that black instinct what she could give just to see _someone_ dead by dawn, and yet the new boy had lived to see the day. Gamora refused to discuss it, avoiding every barter offered. Nebula knew why, judging by the tightness in her sister's green face and the experience of long years between them. It wasn't mercy – but Nebula could have easily sold it to Father as such, and seen them both torn apart and thrown down into the catacombs to rot. Better Gamora kept her silence, leaving Nebula with no proof as to what had gone down between her and the 'baby brother.'

She believed she knew anyway. Gamora had somehow refused to give new boy any of that secret mercy and kept it all for herself. Sometimes living was the worst fate to give another. In her memory was burned the soft and hellish green gleam that filled the catacombs, the halls of lost souls. This was Sanctuary's last and most important lesson, where only Death was adored supreme to all else.

Nebula's bluish lips curled a little against the cold synthskin that replaced the soft, warm blue she'd once been born with. Gamora was maybe hardening up at last. Maybe she'd get hard enough to make a run for it, finally slap back at Father, who cared for her so dearly as to make her the sharpest of all his knives. And then, Nebula would find a way to kill her. To take her place, once she'd proven a disappointment. She'd be quick about it if she could. Merciful just the once, for old and secret kindnesses given to her in turn. But it _would_ be done.

It was one way to get closer to Father's side. Close enough to plunge in the blade. But if another chance appeared? She'd take it, gladly.

She lifted her head for a better view through the grate as a flurry of activity began on the edge of the hangar. The Stones often called to one another, supposedly. Secrets only Thanos knew for certain. The things taken recently had given him new control, new avenues of research. The next stones would break to his will more quickly now. Perhaps the Soul would heed him in full at last. But now, Corvus's experimental staff and its caged stone would knock on the door, and the Space Stone would hear its distant sibling and open the way. Corvus waited by the platform that would be their end of this portal, the golden-strapped chin lifting as Chitauri skittered out of the path of the arriving prince.

She'd chosen her vantage carefully, wanting a good last look at his face. She smiled again at the deep rings around his eyes and the sweat that already stood out on his pale brow. Pretty porcelain broken boy. She was seeing Corvus's final farewell marking that face, no doubt. Ensuring that everyone was going to be working towards the same play. No subtlety for the torturer. No sense of proper awareness, either, or he wouldn't still be wearing those stupid hoods. Nebula saw clearly what the old general was missing.

In the prince's distant, grey eyes, there was still one small glint plain to be seen. She knew that glint well. She smiled, delighted to see in him the one thing every child of Thanos should carry close to heart. The first and last gift of Thanos.

Hate.

Raw, living hate.

Let Thanos wield fear as his favorite tool. Nebula liked this one the best. She slipped away down the conduit, uninterested in what was going to happen next. It was all inevitable, anyway.

Death was the only constant in the universe. She supposed she understood Thanos's fascination with Her well enough after all. Nebula didn't see it as something to love, however.

She saw it as freedom.

. . .

Gamora looked at the few treasures she had for years kept hidden deep within the stones and tunnels of Sanctuary. A few scraps of colorful cloth, a few smooth pebbles from yet another distant and dead world. Each one a memory of that lost, prior life. The comforting smells of her almost forgotten parents had long since faded, but she felt like her nose could still remember them. That soft, warm smell of home. Her mother's sweet-smelling hug. That was her dream, the one that told her that every morning she woke up into the nightmare instead.

She wasn't going to be able to take them with her. She consoled herself with that fact even as she threw them all into the guttering hole that led to one of the constantly burning furnaces of Thanos's brutal little kingdom. Even if she thought to smuggle them onto Ronan's ship when he finally arrived, they wouldn't be hidden long. The fanatic was careful and fastidious both. His slave-priestesses would be the same, driven by the need to please him. The _Dark Aster_ would be cleansed anew each day, its floors and halls stained only by the blood of his sacrifices and the passage of those half-dead Sakaraan thralls Thanos had already dedicated to him via her and Nebula's command. Ronan claimed he had the clues to another Stone, but that time was now rapidly becoming a factor with those clues in the wind. Treasure hunters would be a risk if they didn't hurry. Good enough information to buy him Father's temporary favor.

Nebula, meanwhile, had found a new and troubling calmness within herself, taking the word that the two sisters would be at the Kree fanatic's side with silence and an unreadable glance at her sister. Gamora found she was frightened for the girl. Many things had changed over the last few months in Sanctuary, many of them still only slowly being revealed. There was nothing she could do right now, but if there came a way, she promised herself, she _would_ try to save her sister from what Thanos had made of them both. Nebula knew she had mercy kept secret in her. It was the only thing she could freely give. She'd done it once before, she would do it again.

She hadn't even tried for their unwanted, unwilling brother. That had been her choice, and her mistake. Next time she was faced with something like that, she would find a way to heal this shard of herself. Not for Loki's sake. She thought of him as lost, she supposed, mixing that belief with the confusion and dislike she decided to call hate.

Meanwhile, all she could carry with her would be the secrets she kept tight within herself, and the dim hope that she'd rebuilt when she found out that Loki had somehow _failed_ in his last great work at Thanos's knee. Now he was in the hands of Asgard again. Where it had all begun for him, and in a way, where it had actually ended.

 _This plan... might not be as good as my last._

How broken had he really been when he fell to that distant Earth? How much had he lied to himself, and to what purpose? She'd seen the light go on in his eyes that night, some flickering piece of his broken spirit that he couldn't quite seem to kill – and she couldn't kill for him. She still couldn't bring herself to wish him luck, bound perhaps forever by that irrational hate for him and his methods that was truly a kind of disgust for those fragments that were inside herself as well, but she wondered. Whether he'd intended to or not, something of himself had escaped Sanctuary after all.

 _Save yourself, Loki. Or next time, I promise. Next time I_ will _do it for you. My way._

Gamora turned away from the ashes of her past, ready at last to find her own, stolen future.

 _End Part Two_

. . .

The story will resume with Part Three this Monday.


	23. (Part Three: And Infinity) Chekov's Ant

Part Three: And Infinity

. . .

" _Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides." ~ Shakespeare's King Lear, Act I, Scene I_

. . .

23\. Chekov's Ant

. . .

Loki barreled into the private quarters he'd been permitted without stopping for breath, the _Mortalus's_ brutally black and nigh-organic architecture just as plain in every inch of these walls as the twisting corridors beyond, and just as oppressive. He tugged frantically at his high black collar as he moved, muttering low and fast in a way that would make no sense to an onlooker whatsoever. Partially it was a spell to fox spies and monitoring equipment, partially it was rapid-fire and almost panicked dialogue hissed at some other unseen figure.

The ant-sized speck he shook loose bounced clear from the pale and still-muttering throat, to the golden shoulder where he bounced off with surprising agility, and became fully human-sized by the time the red-booted feet touched the grey steel floor. Scott Lang yanked his helmet off and pointed a finger at Loki, trying to blurt something in response to what had been for him a plain order to get the hell off before he realized the alien was already fully in the smaller next room with the thin door slamming shut behind him.

From that small room came the sounds of someone being heavily, noisily sick to his stomach. Scott put his hand down and settled for awkwardly staring at the ugly blackened steel walls instead. At least there was a nice window set in one of them. He grimaced when he saw the New York coastline off on the distant horizon, trying to ignore the oddly mundane sound of the supposedly crazy alien god losing what had to have been his entire last week of lunch, and he was not doing very well at that particular mental discipline.

Scott looked back when Loki finally opened the door again, wincing at the waxy, sweaty look on the already pale face. He forgot whatever he was going to say at first. The guy looked like Hell itself had just set up an entire heavy metal music festival on his face, and they were settling in for the long haul. "Dude. You all right, man?"

Loki slumped gracelessly against the doorjamb, the long black coat he wore bunching up against his thigh. A golden bracer thunked the wall, the noise dull in the still air. "You know," he started to say, sarcastic and conversational both. A long-fingered hand came up to rub hard at one cheek, bringing the faintest touch of color back. "One of these days – should we survive this absolutely horrifying plan of mine, of course – Coulson is going to have another 'random' conversation about the effects and treatment of PTSD in my general hearing and it will be the time I finally listen."

"Yeah." Scott shifted his weight, at a loss as to where to go with that. "So, hey. I remembered what I wanted to ask a second ago. You mind?"

Loki cleared his throat in a way that suggested he might not be done with the washroom next to him just yet, his pale hand flapping at him as if to say _get on with it_.

"How did _I_ get this job? I'm the FNG."

"The-"

"Fucking new guy." Scott looked around until he figured out that, yes, the grotesque spine-like construct boiling out of the floor was in fact supposed to be a bench. He sat on it gingerly, intimately aware of how it magically jabbed against every bone in his ass and thighs. "The noob. Like, I promise I'm not normally an idiot but I'm still feeling way out of my league here. Man, I don't even know what _day_ it is half the time, unless it's Saturday. I always know Saturday. And now I'm on a spaceship." He reared his head back, his face pinching into an expression that suggested if he thought about that fact too long, he might need that washroom for a few. "The weirdness quotient of my life has been escalating exponentially since I got out of prison."

That got him a puzzled look. "Why Saturday?"

"Never mind. Point is, okay, I signed up because those SHIELD guys said 'please' and you were in kind of a hurry when I got the call to come meet you and the green chick that got us in here – what the _hell_ is up with green chick, like, I know hostile but _wow_ \- so I didn't exactly get much of a full brief before diving in. But hey. It's been a wild ride so far, and it's not like I've got regrets. Just... So what's the story here, what am I doing? Why me?"

Loki coughed into his hand and winced. For a moment it looked as if he were about to duck back inside, but he eventually sighed instead.

"If you gotta, man, don't hold it too hard. I got a kid, let me tell you, it's better ou-"

" _Thank you_." The glare Scott got was a little too bright and hot before evening out. Loki raised a hand, mollifying himself as much as making a gesture of apology. "First, for what I have in mind, you have a unique skill-set that will allow you to be an unrestricted help to me aboard this vessel. From what SHIELD's given me to understand, you were not entrusted with that ridiculous cherry-colored suit for random reason, but because you're one of the best burglars in that particular industry. I don't need base thievery, Lang-"

"Scott."

"What?" The hand came back up to Loki's face as it creased in the recognizable start of a real headache.

"Just- just call me Scott, okay? It's kinda weird the other way."

"Fine," Loki said, too sharply. "I don't need a thief here, however. I need a scout, and quite probably a saboteur. In my experience, being a good burglar necessitates these skills. This and the suit makes you the perfect choice. Second, you have _no idea_ how charming I find it that you have almost no idea who I am nor what I've done."

Scott rolled his eyes, finishing it with a double thumbs-up from where he still sat on the incredibly ill-designed bench. He squirmed, looking doubly uncomfortable. "Go, me."

Loki tugged open a lapel of his coat, rooting around for something inside it. He came up with a small, dull red box, tossing it towards Scott who caught it easily. "Your first job is simple enough. That should, according to Coulson, fit inside your helmet at your standard miniaturization and-"

He paused, watching Scott fuss with the box's tiny contents, then sighed, editing himself into plainer language on the fly. The human _was_ a well-educated engineer, but he was also attempting to take in a great amount of bizarre new information in a hurry. "Look, you're going to GoPro the hell out of the place, all right? Just get everywhere you can and as soon as you can, study everything, particularly data terminals and the major military posts. Gamora left those boxes of your ants where she could, so you'll be able to move smoothly enough. I can re-image what you find into a detailed map each time you report back. Do so regularly. We have hours for certain, a scant handful of days if we're deeply fortunate and certain contingencies hold out. Now, if I'm not in this room, you hide and wait for me. Do not stay at your natural size anywhere aboard this vessel for longer than seconds if at all possible. I can guarantee our safety here in these quarters going forward, but nowhere else."

Scott looked up at him, a little relieved at the familiar job-type. "Yeah, I can do that. No prob. No blueprints we could just hack, though?"

"Not anything we're going to access simply. Not even me. You can't just hook up a laptop to one of Thanos's flagships and move files around like it's nothing, implant a virus or whatnot. I'd do it all myself if it were just that."

"Hey, we saw the same movie!"

"And I _loathed_ it. Now. When you were carefully not reading very important documentation given you by the Avengers, did you happen to perhaps accidentally skim the papers on recognizing and dealing with mind control?"

"Uhhh."

Loki nodded wearily. "Right. Let's hope we won't need this information, because if we do, a large number of things have gone very wrong. Listen close, and I'll make this simple as well: If I return to this room and I don't seem _right,_ by which I mean you're going to have to trust your instincts somewhat and recognize if I'm acting a touch more a prat than usual, you're going to have to try and, well, recalibrate me." He watched the questioning shrug he got in response, managing a mirthless smile. "It's brutally simple. Stay on the other side of the room in miniature. Get up to a good speed there, and then use your larger size and momentum to knock me the rest of the way across the room. Try to smash my head on a pillar or something. A jutting corner. Gods know, there's enough ugly angles in this place. Whatever you can manage."

" _Dude._ " The single word came in a loud gasp.

Loki spread his hands at the aghast expression. "Look, it's not optimal but firstly, I'm durable enough to not take permanent damage – probably – and second, there are people that would line up and _pay money_ to do what I'm asking of you." He looked away, out the window towards the distant and still Earthly horizon, muttering for himself alone. "Dear gods, if I've earned back any favor, let that stone hold out long enough."

"Is that the best solution? Because I don't want to explain alien brain damage to-" He stopped himself when Loki jerked his head up as if he'd heard something. "What?"

"Shrink, now!" Loki hissed the words followed by a snap of his fingers, then shoved away from the doorjamb to start striding back across the room. He had a hand out towards the closed door of the chambers, still seeing the after-image of Scott Lang dropping into miniature behind the bench he'd just been sitting on, when the door flew open on him. He stepped back once, then again as the smaller figure awhirl in a dress of blue and green all but flung herself at him.

His hand snapped up on reflex and caught Lorelei firmly by the wrist, not taking his gaze off the knife in her hand for a second. She snarled a single low word and the door swung itself shut again with a click, still doing her level best to drive him back towards a pillar at the back of the room. He kept calm. "Lorelei... I'm not really having guests at the moment."

She didn't say anything else until he felt his spine connect with the steel hard enough to feel its chill through his leather armor. She was running some sort of strength-enhancement spell, the etheric trace of it sharp in the undercurrents of energy around her. He recognized it for a simple but potent one, knew she didn't have a long duration for the trade of gathering enough power to shove him around. Just enough to get the drop on him. "What are you up to, Loki?"

"Family reunion?" The black joke strangled itself off into a wounded laugh as she pressed harder with the knife. "I can't speak with removed vocal cords, Lorelei."

"You're buying time. _Tell me_. Or I start cutting." The knife pressed in closer, half an inch away from being a real threat.

"Oh, for -" He swatted at her wrist with his free hand, as if struggling for his life. She tensed hard at the response in order to keep her position, which gave him enough of a window to gently twist her arm until he was able to spin her into a disabling grapple with his arm holding her torso in place. "Good spell. Next time, practice how to actually _use_ its benefits. I, for example, had to grow up with half a dozen ruddy combat fanatics up in my hair all the damned time. Weapons practice every day. Twice, actually, once I picked up knives elsewhere. Reaction time is a factor if you're trying to do the physical job yourself."

She kicked at him, furious.

"Stop it." He let go in an attempt to mollify her, kept his hands in the air while she whirled back, now pointing the knife at his eye. "Think for a single minute."

"I've thought all morning, damn you. You _gave_ him those monstrous artifacts!" She jabbed, getting empty air as he flinched back quickly. "What was all that in Asgard, then? Just trying to get the Space Stone back for yourself?"

" _No_." He waited for the next jab, got her wrist again and easily took the knife away this time. Fortunate for him she was behaving wildly, spending it all on this one shot. One that could have scored her a point or two if he wasn't already keyed up and horribly alert from being in Thanos's presence. When Lorelei was more thoughtful, things typically got truly dangerous. He looked down at its jagged edge, blinking rapidly. "Gods, you're going to kill somebody with this thing. Is it poisoned?" He looked up at her reddened face. "It is. Tell me you packed the antidote."

"I didn't. Tell me the truth."

"You first. Necklace poultice? I see the chain 'round your throat. Lorelei, get a new trick." He took the bench recently vacated by Scott, passing the knife between his hands while hoping vaguely he hadn't just stepped on the human. "Was I wrong about Thanos? I warned you, service to him wouldn't be what you expected."

Her face hardened. "Sanctuary is Hel Itself all over again, that black realm of ours reborn into some maddened, sundered life out there at the edge of everything. That _beast_ is the heart of it."

"Florid, but, well, yes. I've no arguments there." Loki sighed, tapping the blade against the side of his boot before looking up to examine her. He looked at the shut door next, then allowed the gamble to ride. "And I mean to see that beastly heart cut out. You want a big result, you play the dangerous game to its end."

"You mean to do this, you say." Lorelei's eyes glittered down at him, putting it together with a mind now quicker and calmer both. "That's what all this is – you and your brother allied again, these humans scattered upon the world below. You mean to bait him with everything that he's desired, then strike when so enraptured. This is your plan?"

He waved an empty hand.

"You're _mad_."

Loki shrugged, not at all offended. "It's been said, louder and by better."

"Damn you." She dropped onto the bench next to him. "Give me that knife back."

"No. Why, not done threatening me with it?"

"I've a need to hide it." She grabbed at it while he passed it back to his other hand, keeping it just out of her grasp. "Very well, I've got another threat, then. Don't need the knife if that's how we're to play this." She smiled at him, all full of bitter anger. "I've got you by the throat anyway. I tell Thanos what you tell me, plant any seed of doubt in him, you die."

"That'll be how it happens, yes," he said carefully. "An irreversible decision, mind. I can't do anything useful while I'm dead. Don't be hasty, Lorelei."

"Then you'll do something useful alive – I want my sister back. Swear this to me."

He rubbed at his forehead, weariness marking his face sharply. "Lorelei."

"He's _done_ something to her." She grabbed at his arm, hard enough to dig her fingers in. The spell was still active, causing him to wince at the force of her grasp. "With the stone he yet had. I don't know what, precisely. She won't tell me and I couldn't ever get below to the catacombs to search for myself. It doesn't matter now, he's brought all his toys with him to this rotten little world. You help me get Amora back, change what he's done, and from now until then, I'll play along. Cover for you, if you damn well need."

He didn't say anything as he kept rubbing at his forehead. Eventually he nodded, his voice an exhausted monotone. "As you like, Lorelei. I'll try." He brought his hand down to squeeze at the bridge of his nose, sighing. "On what remains of my good word, I'll try. I promise."

"It's done. It's sworn. Give me my damned knife."

He wordlessly handed it over to her as she stood up again, rushing out of the room in a flurry of skirts without looking back at him. The door slammed shut as he watched the tiny humanoid emerge from under the bench next to his boot, the half-inch high figure looking up at him from his own oddly skewed perspective. "Well. _That_ happened."

The wee figure responded with a shrug of confusion dramatic enough that he could clearly make it out.

"Complications, Scott. There's always more of them."


	24. Free Your Mind

24\. Free Your Mind

. . .

 _Something more than power thrummed through the no-space spiral that connected the six infinite entities together, a primal force that surged so unstoppably across the concept of all things that it was simplicity itself, a dual set of meta-level macro-codes that repeated itself through the universe it represented. There was the dark. And there was the light. The six spun between these, the roots of the universe contained in each coded shape, each one wholly itself. Alone, and yet together. Four were still insensate where they hung, two stood in opposition although one of them was currently also at rest._

He _was aware, however, and he was awareness itself. He was the Mind incarnate, given vision to behold and lift up the small lives that threaded between the two ultra-states that bookended the sea of input that had long been a dead universe and then, now, a living one. His physical form laid at rest far away, so disconnected from the now unlimited spread of his identity that it was the vibranium shell that was a ghost, not the spirit that hung here between all things. Within that self-force churned the thoughts of every life he had personally witnessed and deeper within were countless others, jostling to be heard and remembered. He kept them all close, particularly those who he had directly touched while existing only as the churning sea of Mind. He held deep the care and the mercy he felt for each of these, remembering dimly now that prison of blue that made him into a literal weapon at Thanos's call._

 _The being hovered in the between, directly jacked into the six-axis network and unable to disconnect entirely. Beyond the darkened meta-layer he sensed the implacable will of Thanos attempting to comprehend and reshape the spiral that made up the ultimate machine-code of the universe. He had the map of a representation of this mystery memorized, so Vision – here in the between, he still labeled his own sense of identity as a reliable method to anchor himself against his siblings' influence – had learned from Loki's own memories. Still, Thanos was an intrusion on the tautly wired network. Until he had asserted direct control, however, he could be firewalled from burrowing further into the system._

 _This seemed right and true. Once a weapon, now, weighted with mortal and human conscience, Vision understood the worth of being the shield instead. No vengeance kindled inside his spirit; while he stood with those who called themselves Avengers, that drive was not his. He chose to embrace the kinder act of protection, striking out only at true need._

 _Vision closed his eyes to focus, understanding this was only a symbolic act at this basic first layer of reality. Having first found his awareness as the shards of a computer program, it was easier for this slice of his self to perceive all of eternity and infinity around him as machine code. He breathed, calculating eternity in binary. It was entirely probable this was a correct perception, although it had its flaws when it came to full comprehension. There would always be things that could not be collated simply by cold numbers. He exhaled. No, for as long as he was aware among the six, it was correct. Enough so to do what he needed, even beyond his own limits. He opened his eyes again and looked for the distant terminus between light/dark/order/chaos so he could position himself. Here under Thanos's warping influence, the poles were reversed in a kind of heresy. To strengthen himself against that intrusion, he must descend instead._

 _Data streamed through himself; memories, culture, the heritage of countless worlds, the mystery play known by thousands of lost civilizations. The lonely walk through the underworld, the touch of Death's hand. He nodded, still aware the echo of a physical act was meaningless. The import, however, was crucial to him. He spread his arms like an eagle and glided down towards the infinite light, letting it fill him like a pool of pure and purifying fire._

 _In the between, all that light and life and fire seemed to shriek and reverberate through his infinite self like the mythic phoenix known throughout the universe. Here he would hold fast against Thanos's desire to control him and his five siblings for as long as he could. Knowing that one among them – the Soul, aware and hungry, now become a phage against Life itself and willing to corrupt the code-states around them to feed – would ascend to that black intent first and give way, as taught. All for itself._

 _And Vision, given identity and self and the memory of that physical state he had grown to love, had a soul of his own to be corrupted. He would be at great risk here, with pain to come to try and shake him from his duty at the bidding of Death Herself, who could also be Her own opposite. This was understood. He planted himself deep in the code of life, that wellspring of potential, and built out of himself that firewall against Thanos's demands. He was ready to hold out as long as possible. For all the lives that had touched him, for the sake of Her who had asked with a gentle hand outstretched for his life to save Life._

 _Of the fire, he shaped it into the face of a human to comfort him and to help him remember his own brief hours of physical existence. Wanda, with her red eyes and her mind's raw and sometimes uncontrollable power, and how she grieved for that shell of his without knowing all of why it had to be this way. Her gifts had come from a piece of himself, chosen but also forced onto her. She had given him back her friendship, freely. An incalculable gift._

 _He whispered her name as the final lock on the wall that kept him safe, and he made himself into unbreakable silence. Now he would wait, infinite._

. . .

Coulson interlaced his fingers in front of him while he replayed Natasha Romanoff's report from a watchpost deep in Eastern Europe for another's benefit. Next to him, Agent Melinda May stood with her arms crossed against her, creaking her fingertips against the oiled leather of her jacket. She jerked her chin at the frozen image of the distant spy when it was done looping, forever calm. "That within all the projections you guys cooked up?"

"Latveria preparing to enter the playing field, thanks to a rogue element that Loki previously identified as someone who will _probably_ move against Thanos?" Phil stared at the wall-screen with a lopsided smile. "Kinda? Like, specifically no, but Loki also laid out how he handles a bunch of contingencies and probabilities when he explained the main flow-chart of his plan to me. If possible complication A enters stage right, then probability 43, 45, and 59 approach 80% chance of becoming an actuality, necessitating back-up play #7 by such and such time... That's not quite exactly how it went down, May, but it's pretty wild how he thinks through a scenario. Not ordered, exactly. Understanding how chaos flows. Organic, but also sorta chartable if he hooks in and rides it out. You kind of can't help but start to buy the God of Mischief, God of Change thing. He sells it really friggin' well when it counts."

"So what's back-up play number 7?"

Phil shrugged. "We keep watch and see where Doom goes. What we can't monitor as well is what his new guest is gonna do while she's here. Nebula. She's a variable that Loki flat out stated we're not going to get a good bead on unless and until she moves first. That could get hairy fast, depending on what she does, but we'll adjust to it when it happens as best we can. I received a set of files this morning after Romanoff's report first came in – got on the horn to see what people could tell me about her. I got Loki's few notes from beforehand, the rap sheet from Nova Corp – and boy, is _that_ thing a wild read – plus I got a sheaf of documentation from elsewhere in the galaxy. And then there's the profile Rocket sent over."

"The little not-raccoon guy knows her?"

"Not exactly. Report came from Gamora, one of the contributors on the plan. She was close to Nebula, gave up some useful intel. Especially regarding how dangerous she actually is. As bad as the Corp file is, I guess it doesn't cover it all. They were sisters under Thanos, did the family's dirty work on command. That's where Loki knew them all, apparently. He still doesn't like doing a full debrief on that. To this day I've never gotten the whole story. Tells me a lot about the untold bits, actually, if I think about it. And believe me, I do." Phil unlaced his hands and sat down on the edge of his director's desk, finding the tablet he'd dedicated all the files to and passing it up to May.

"Gamora. She's the one that you told me smuggled Loki onto the _Mortalus_. Green humanoid. Unarguably badass by all accounts. Probably someone I'd like, way I heard it."

"Yep. And also, yep, I absolutely think you would. She's since gotten back with Rocket and his buddies."

May's face creased, thinking that over and noticing a couple of logistical oddities. She settled on the first guess. "That's a fast play, taking what I know into consideration. They stayed local for some reason?"

Coulson shrugged, trying to not grin and failing miserably.

"Phil." She looked up from the tablet, now absolutely certain of her hunch. "Do I need to ask how you think you're getting us into that ship when Loki's chance opens up?"

"It absolutely does not involve me borrowing a cute little short-range hopper of a spacecraft from a crazy alien raccoon and personally piloting it up the ass of a titanic warship while screaming the best Han Solo quotes from all four movies, Agent May, I promise you that."

"The friends you keep, I would have thought you'd lie better to me." May shook her head with a total lack of surprise and resumed scanning the tablet, arching her eyebrow at a few of the criminal briefs listed by the Corp. Murder, a complete assortment of war crimes, assault, theft, terrorism, more murder. Nebula had specific talents, and she played to them perfectly.

"Figured you'd prefer a really obvious one to prove I'm not being a jerk about it." She looked at him over the edge of the tablet. "Okay, that I probably picked up from Loki."

"No, you pulled that crap when you first got out of training, Phil." She tapped the tablet against her palm, thinking. "Okay. So, we're still on target, new things in play included."

"Lots of little elements of chaos starting, May. The Gish Gallop Chaos Theorem. Loki stirred up as much of a storm in as many corners as he could before he left for the ship, now we're gonna start seeing a ripple effect kick up on its own. Thanos likes things in order, his kind of order, which is apparently the worst kind. This is potentially going to drive him nuts, once the payoffs start. He can't slap off every stinging bug."

"Potentially." She sighed, slumping against the desk next to him with the tablet settling towards her lap. He looked at her, eyebrow arched to ask the question for him. "I still can't believe this. You know? Everything from the first moment he showed up again to now. We just bet the entire jackpot on the guy that stabbed you to death, back when he was in the service of the same people he's undercover with today." She shook her head again to cut him off when he opened his mouth. "I'm not about to play devil's advocate, Phil. That's been put down as far as I'm concerned. I'm saying that I'm still amazed that I've got twenty bucks in the pot to say he pulls it off."

Phil reared back a little as he looked at her, plainly surprised at the admission of _some_ faith in Loki. "You wanna talk about a long walk from then to now."

"Yeah, tell me about it. What the hell, only took a couple years for grudging acceptance. We survive, maybe in five more I'll actually smile in his presence." May tapped the tablet against her knee next, moving on to the next issue. "We gonna get backup when we get on that ship? Besides the Avengers, which I'm thinking of as more the alternate team pushing towards the same play."

"Oh, we got _all kinds_ of backup." Coulson chuckled. "Nobody's thinking we're going to hinge something like just this on a tiny squad of Earthlings. I mean, could we do it? Hell, _yes_ , we could. Look at our team. They're terrific. But we're going in _hard_."

. . .

Peter Quill stumbled through the door of the indie music shop, an entrenched hipster enclave that stunk like vaping and expensive coffee grounds. In its defense, the young man with a lush lumberjack beard behind the counter nodded to the new arrivals with quiet but sincere politeness. A shaved head poked out from the back room, ready to help. Upcycled pallet-crates full of vinyl albums old and new crowded the center aisles and along the wall, stacked up like holy books in an ancient archive, were countless cassette tapes.

Quill fell dramatically to his knees, grinning like a complete idiot. He didn't care about the looks he got from the other customers. "Oh my God, I'm home."


	25. The Voyage Home

NOTE: Today will see a two-part update ahead of a small but genuine chance that I will be unable to update on Monday. If Monday turns out fine, well, today was a bonus round and we'll see a chapter then, too.

. . .

25\. The Voyage Home

. . .

Gamora nudged Quill hard in his side with one gloved hand, her long hair draping along her face to finish the job the loose hood had started. Along with her green skin, the disguise muted the absolute storm of internal tension that kept her on edge. Still, she didn't like the way the skinny human with the remarkably abundant, fluffy facial hair kept looking at her. "Quill."

He didn't look away from the tower of small boxes he was rummaging through, his voice distracted. "Guy doesn't see anything weird, Gamora, relax. He thinks you're maybe a shoplifter."

"That's not better."

"Just don't touch anything and he'll eventually realize you're a privacy freak and lay off." He looked off to the side, studying the pile of also out of date CD Walkmans with real but fleeting interest. He still firmly believed the true life of the music was in the white noise that came with good old tape. Well, _Mom's_ life was in there somewhere, if he were going to be honest with himself. He sometimes thought he could hear her voice in the scratchy bits, memories of those good years when he was still so young and she could have lived forever. The walls around him seemed to fade for a moment.

She swatted at him again, bringing him back. "Just digitize your lyrical nonsense and be done with it. Can we move on? We need to discuss our current status."

"Would you just give me five minutes to live here?" He slumped slightly, never sure how to say important things without being a dick about it. "Look, someday let me try and explain to you what all this crap you think is so stupid really means to me, alright? But right now, I need some Creedence and Steppenwolf for the Milano. Maybe try something new. I dunno what-"

"You should try The Black Angels." Beard guy sidled up, hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans. He missed the way Gamora's eye blazed out from her hair at his sudden approach, busy doing a remarkably subtle glance at her hands and the pockets of her jacket. Catching her clean of any stolen product to prove out the only thing he cared about, he went back to grinning amiably at Quill.

"Yeah, man?"

"Psychedelic revival, absolutely tops if you like it old school. Heavy Velvet Underground sound." The beard regarded the towering wall of archaic media. "We got 'em on cassette, even vinyl too. They went all the way with the motif."

"Sold, bro. Hook me up with something good." Quill slapped his gloved hands together before reaching out to gently wiggle out a couple of tiny boxes from the wall. Logistics occurred to him in an afterthought. "You guys still take cash?"

Beard guy shrugged, not surprised by the question for whatever reason. "Cash, Apple pay, coin... We don't do the barter system. We used to."

No option for a galactic credit-transfer seemed to be kind of a given. Quill shrugged that off. "Whatever, dude."

. . .

Quill studied the printed receipt with actual horror before he wadded it up and stuffed it in the first trash can he passed. "Inflation is a _bastard._ " He looked up, glancing at the other people wandering up and down the sidewalk. "Fashion got weird, too. I mean, maybe not that weird? I don't know. My frame of reference is all screwed up. Rocket back with the ship?"

Gamora caught the note in his voice. "You don't want to stay? This is your world."

"Yeah, it is, and I mean... we're gonna keep it alive and all that, but my home's really my ship, Gamora. Jokin' about the record shop aside. I got a whole life out there, I don't want to give it up yet." He shrugged, looking sheepish as he rattled the brand new cassette tapes in the pockets of his red ravager's jacket. There was a lot he never knew how to say, so he didn't try. "So what all's the status, since you were totally gonna beat my ass with it in there."

"Rocket's back with the Milano. No problems with delivery of the loaner. Towed it perfectly right through all flight scans."

"Any problems with the would-be pilot?"

"Seems to think Mr. Coulson's going to handle the short-ranger just fine. I think I agree. He's a good man." She couldn't resist a small chuckle. She'd looked over Rocket's shoulder when some things were being arranged, saw the way Coulson's face lit up at that aspect of the plan. "We do seem to pick up the oddest colleagues."

"Yeah. Ever get the feeling Groot has more to do with Rocket's decisions than anyone wants to admit?" She looked at him sharply, startled by the occasional moment of real astuteness he could have. He was staring up at the solar-panel streetlights with his mouth open. "I just remember how into it Groot was when Rocket was layin' down what happened on some of his odd jobs around this part of space. He really liked the guy. Liked your old jerkass buddy, too."

She looked away, her arms huddling in close around her jacket and causing something to pinch at her hip. She took her hand out to readjust the small sheath she had to keep stuffed under the layers of her clothes. "Groot has more heart than any of us. He's very kind. And I think he needs Rocket just as much."

"Guess that's true." He quit letting his mouth hang like a flytrap. "I'm just glad the friggin' houseplant sprouted back up after the shit with Ronan. 'Kay, ship's good, we're good. I got me some new tunes. What's Rocket's checklist look like from here?"

"We're to rendezvous with him back at the Milano, help him do one more full systems scan, then we get into geosynch outside all local and invasive sensors to sit tight on the go signal. We jump in once this Thor's team goes. SHIELD first, then him, then us. There'll be others, I'm to understand, but not acting on our schedule. After that, it's all up in the air." She adjusted again.

"You all right there?" Quill was looking at her hip with, at least, real concern and not just taking the chance to glance at her rear.

She took her hand away from the knife. "It's nothing."

"New knife? What'd you do, go over to a sports store for a souvenir? Tell me it's got 'Welcome to Earth!' custom stamped on it." He pointed at the hilt where it peeked out, chuckling a little.

"It's not _new_." It came out too shortly and she sighed when he recoiled, trying to sound apologetic. Nothing to be done for it now. She brought out the small knife and its silvered tip to show him. "I left it behind. A long time ago. I'm more than a little surprised to see it come back to me." She looked down at it herself, noticing no rust nor other mark of misuse on the blade she'd once left on the nightstand of a man she had intended to kill. Loki had taken good care of it since. Her hand closed around the hilt and she put it away again before any of the humans around her caught sight of it, still confused by the various meanings that small act of returning the blade could have. "Partial payment for the flight out, I guess you could say."

"Right." He was looking at her warily, seeing her tension. "You still good with this?"

"Yes, Quill." She looked ahead, her chin nearly coming out too far from her hood. She realized it when a jogger did a double-take, nuzzling herself back down. The earthly clothing was at least warm. She might keep the jacket, too. "It's just having Thanos this close. It cost, getting away from him. Knowing he's right there, knowing I had to sneak onto that grotesque ship of his, even if just for moments... it's unpleasant for me." She exhaled. "And soon I have to do it again."

"Look on the bright side. Next time, we go in shooting."

She did manage a lopsided smile at that, still worried but more than a little touched by his attempt to be comforting. "That _is_ something, I suppose."

. . .

Thor waved a hand over the crystal beacon to double-check its status, glancing next at Heimdall who shook his head. "We remain in stasis," said Asgard's eternally stoic watchman where he stood at the end of the hall. "All are in their places, and those whom I cannot see, I yet cannot see."

"The veil across Latveria?"

Heimdall looked across the golden table towards the scientist Thor had brought with him. The human rubbed his hand along his chin after the question, fidgety in a way that suggested nothing of fear. "Yes, Banner. Often that small realm drifts in and out of my sight and I seldom have had need nor want to look close. But now I do make this attempt regularly for the sake of what comes, and I see that their sorcerer-king knows a few things about mirrors and shadows. He uses magic and satellite both to useful guise. Peel one, the other will remain. I see but darkly now in his kingdom. A troublesome people. And a most worrisome king astride it."

"Mhm." Bruce nodded, mostly thinking to himself and glancing up as Thor furrowed his eyebrows at him in the unspoken question. "Nat told me a few stories, got the usual SHIELD briefs. I also threw out some ideas on new orbital platforms to try and get through over the last few years. Last I heard, we got nothing. Still an empty spot in the world." He reached out and tapped at the crystal with the thick-rimmed glasses in his hand, distracted. "Harmonic resonance on the hertz scale, transposing sound to background radiant energy and back. That's... that's nifty."

"Not our greatest work, Doctor Banner." Thor crossed his bare arms against his tunic, leaning back. "But it will be reliable. When it alights to let us know our other allies are in readiness, we must step forward and land where Heimdall may place us. Then we fight to our last breath, if we must."

"You, me, your buddies, a regiment of the gold dudes... and, and, the blue guys?" Banner laughed a little, awkward and momentarily small amidst the kingdom's splendor. "Giants?"

"Farbauti, Queen of Jotunheim, has granted us a handful of her finest warriors, a token of collaboration between our realms and acknowledgment of the threat Thanos poses." Thor smiled, the intent of it mostly meant for himself. She had all but volunteered them freely to Asgard when the call went out for more to stand against the invading warlord; eight elite warriors and some kind of shaman who bore her closest regard to stand with the rest of their alliance. It was the shaman who had thrown Thor for a loop when they arrived, an enormous but serene and silent figure with runic magework carved with odd beauty all along his great lapis-blue arms. The jotun would abide Thor's orders alone - until such time as they came across Loki, who would also be given priority to command. Only the brothers. The message in that was intended to be clear to the house of Asgard. Odin had hesitated at the offering, but not for long. From there he deferred to Thor, who had accepted the help warmly for the sake of all. Farbauti herself remained in her palace of ice and frozen stone, capable of mustering more at need. She watched meanwhile. Of this, Thor had no doubt.

"Okay. So, giants." Banner nodded, taking that weirdness in with relative good cheer.

Thor clapped him on the back with a chuckle. "In these hours, Banner, among these allies, your other shape will not seem so out of place."

"...Yay?"

. . .

Nebula looked up, tense, as the door to the ostentatious guest room she'd been given opened without a knock. There was little privacy in Doom's personal domain, and she'd twigged to that fact fast. There were many places in the halls where she felt eyes on her at all times and even with all her senses and sensors alive, she could not trace where they hid. Even here, in the quarters, she often felt them. More of those weird constructs that took their king's face and shape, in all probability. It was a level of vanity and arrogance new even to her, and she accepted it as she did all novelty – with a knife in her hand and her eyes wide and ready.

The woman walked in. The half-construct herself, von Bardas. She looked steadily back at Nebula with a slight bow of her head in greeting. Creepy mostly dead chick.

Nebula waved back with the knife bare in her hand, cheery and utterly false, from where she sat on the too-soft bed. "'Sup?"

"May I sit?"

 _Oh, now you want to be polite?_ Nebula showed her thoughts with a smile full of teeth, gesturing to the wood and gold-gilded chair next to the door by way of jabbing the point of the blade towards it.

Lucia dropped easily into it, her cold hands clasped together in her uniformed lap. Metal eyes searched Nebula while her face remained seemingly void of any emotion save those intended to lift up her king. "There will be another meeting shortly. I am sent to make you aware of this. A plan has been selected, and you are requested to be its centerpiece."

The knife flipped in the air, landing lazily back in a blue palm. "I used to have a room like this. Real nice. Pretty. Not as good a view, but that's what happens when you grow up at the hairy rim of space's own asshole. And the thing about that room was that it was _so_ big and _so_ pretty, and anything I wanted, I could have. If I just asked for it. And do you know what I realized real quick?"

Lucia's head lifted in a curious tilt, waiting patiently for the answer.

"The way you get someone to just eat up the full-bore prison treatment is to pretend like it's something special." Flip. Flip. She gave the knife a cockier spin in the air, letting the naked blade land flat against the back of her hand before knocking it back up. A second later and the tip balanced delicately on her tough finger. No blood, just the dip below the nail where it pressed sharp against the synthetic skin. "Not so many questions if you fill 'em up on stuff to keep them from thinking too hard. Oh, we learned that fast back home. And it'd almost always be the first trick pulled on a new arrival. When'd you tweak to it, Lucia?"

"I serve my king in all things." The response was curt and haughty in how fast it was shot back at her. Nebula grinned at the tone, the first real thing she'd heard since she'd gotten here. Maybe there _was_ still someone under the circuits and the rote programming. She still didn't grasp all of why she gave a damn, but the woman nagged at her.

"Not talkin' about him. I wanna hear about you."

"I ser-"

"Ugh. Boring." The knife snapped through the air one more time before landing hilt-first in her palm. It disappeared a split-second later, along with her interest. "Never mind, lady. Get lost. I like to talk with people who still have a mind of their own." She frowned for a moment, hitting on one of the things that was bugging her about Doom versus Thanos. Thanos thrived on willfulness, on the desperate thrashing of those whose throats he was crushing. It amused him. He was a man of order, but not mindlessly so.

This Doom took total, almost antiseptic control. The signs of that fact were all around her, from the 'bots to the woman in the chair. A chill rattled down her spine to match the air's natural bite.

Suddenly, "Did you not ever serve?"

"I never _served_. Wouldn't call it that, babe." She pulled a knee up to tuck it under her chin, studying the woman. Looking for anything else to shift in that dead, blank face. _Why?_ She didn't know. "I was a slave. I never had a choice, not a _real_ one. They tell you that you do, and that's technically right. You can be a slave, become what they make you, or you can die if you've got the nerve to die screaming for days. And even that's not a guarantee, because the rules went to hell a long time ago. So you'll still be a slave if someone wants you to be. No choice, but they make it look like all the doors are open right up to the end. That's the last cage. Real tough to get out of that one."

Lucia looked back at her, impassive. "But was it impossible?"

Nebula grinned. "I'll let you know by the end of the week, babe."

There it was. A micro-flash of _something_ rushing across the blank features. Something real. Alive. Nebula lifted her face up at the sight of it, eyes narrowing curiously as she tried to track it down.

The woman lifted herself smoothly out of the chair when she realized the sharpness of Nebula's notice, the only sign anything had occurred shown in the swipe of a hand across her face. "I will send one of the guards when it is time. My gratitude for yours freely granted."

"Anytime," said Nebula, leaning back to prop herself up with her elbows. She watched the back of Lucia's tunic disappear in a rustle out the door, damn near forgetting to shut it behind her. She grinned again, outright delighted with the development. There were cracks in any castle, keep, or compound; conduits to slip through unseen and servants to bribe for information. This was a constant, from one end of the galaxy to the other.

She'd just found the first and possibly only exploitable wedge in Doom's pretty palace. Actually, against all expectations, it had found her. A tiny little sliver of something he didn't yet have total control over.

Just in case she'd made the wrong call coming here. Just in case.


	26. Mephistophelian

Second part of today's update

. . .

26\. Mephistophelian

. . .

Loki watched Thanos's golden-armored back with his face a pure mask of serenity carefully hiding all of himself within it. His hands were held before him where he stood in his finest black armor, the only 'tell' to give away his turmoil of emotions itself a planned one. Fingers rubbed and picked at each palm as he stood in attendance, the actions nervous and quick. Why wouldn't they be, considering? "These... Avengers are gathering to find a strikepoint as we speak."

"You fear them." Thanos finished settling the gauntlet back into place upon its pedestal, the faintest touch of weariness staining his voice. Around it hung six stones in their small containment cells. He glanced back to see the white mask, the fretting hands. He looked away again, his rich purple skin touched with ash.

" _Fear_ is overmuch a word, my lord." He let his hands drop, looking away to ensure that his relief at seeing the warlord's lack of mastery would go unobserved. He allowed himself to show a wince, easy enough when he summoned the old memory of being slung about like a toy by that hulking rage-beast. "Consider instead that I have learned close that there is a resourcefulness to them that must be acknowledged. This you watched, when I failed you. While there is no doubt they cannot do you lasting damage, they may delay and harry where they can."

"You renege on your desire to see them untouched until that hour of their dissolution?"

"Not at all." He managed a small bark of laughter, the sound of it creaky and unstable. The best performances were rooted in the ability to tap the uncomfortable truth, and he was fully focused on offering an absolute award-winner. "I'd rather see them frustrated to the very end, trapped and unable to find purchase upon the ledge where you alone hold sway. My advice is to strengthen the outer shields. Redouble them, at least. Let them see plain how futile it is with the ripple of their energies, let them hear our power as it roars through the sky."

"Still as ever, prone to dramatics. As consistent within you as your questions."

"And are you not, my lord? My father? Should they not know full and true the depths of the fear you might teach them? Be untouched. Allow no trace of them to grasp against us. They will falter, and their defiance will come to naught. As it does for us all." Loki took a raspy inhale as he took a single step forward in dramatic emphasis, muscles tight along his jaw. He felt Thanos's gaze return to study him, the eyes missing nothing. Nothing, he hoped, and yet everything. The absurdity of his own sprawling plans threatened to cause a dangerous laugh deep in his throat. He might have let it loose in an act of pretend madness, but he swallowed it down instead as the safer risk.

 _So this is the hour in which I again look for faith in other Gods. To all such forces in this universe, toss me a ruddy chance here. For the sake of all. Let him see only what I show, this once, these hours. Please. Armor my skin against what I must hide._

The weight of that penetrating gaze fell away again. He did not twitch a single muscle in response, resuming his distant, almost dreamy stare and thinking if he actually pulled this off to the very end, he'd go to Strange's house and personally light about a hundred candles to the sorcerer's own pantheon. Just for starters. _I'm going to lose my damned mind all over again just from stress._

A great hand flung out towards him abruptly, grasping. Loki flinched, not all in pretend, before realizing the warlord was demanding a goblet of wine of him. He crossed the room and poured it with hands that threatened to shake, approaching where Thanos now sat and offering it up smoothly enough. Just as Corvus might have. Damned, lost Corvus. One single tremble ran through his hand at the thought of his torturer, causing a ripple through the deep red liquid.

Thanos took the goblet in silence. He stared at Loki over the rim of it, seeing much the same from his own perspective. "Here we come around again. You now, a son in place of my lost general. You must have wept at the news of his... departure."

Loki inclined his head politely, knowing his face was grayer than usual. "I did not. My oaths were to you, not to your adjutant. But, so 'tis. Here I stand, in advisement and to your amusement. You laugh and I live."

"And when there is no more laughter, Loki?" The eyes did not leave him this time, grim black humor rumbling through the weary voice.

"It will be because the universe itself is in silence." He lowered his head respectfully.

"Hah. Send word to the engine witches in my name. They will do as you say. And as you pass from my hall, send message through my guard to bring the sisters to me next." A great hand waved him off in a dismissal, ignoring Loki as he bowed low and departed swiftly. Now only the stones kept the warlord's attention. Loki was well beyond the doors when the exertion and fear threatened to overtake him once more.

He moved on, his face stoic, hoping all else was right.

. . .

Scott Lang tightened his grip on the reins of a winged carpenter ant currently stuck upside down on the ceiling of a sprawling network of engine rooms. He went over his mental checklist of stuff that would be way more mission critical than, say, where the restrooms were. It beat staring too long at the controllers locked into small pods along the walls, maintaining other vital ship controls with flowing motions that made zero scientific sense. "Okay, Antoinette. If you were a central shield-processing power structure stuck up the colon of an alien megacraft, where would you be?"

One blackish-red antenna was rubbed delicately against a thin leg in response.

He patted the thorax of his tiny shiny steed gently, causing the ant to resettle itself with its sticky feet along the grate. "Beats me, too." He chortled, surprised, as a rustle of activity started off to his left. "Yo! Guess the stunt upstairs worked. That's what I wanted to look out for." Ghastly creatures in tattered robes hissed to each other as they did _something_ to a pillar that seemed almost more fleshy than mechanical. Scott tugged at the reins, dropping them from the ceiling to zoom carefully in to record a good look for Loki's map. He'd already gotten some of the lower levels on an earlier scouting trip; barracks apparently, according to the prince. Big, crowded barracks. Just in case their annihilation needed a personal touch.

Power hummed and thrummed until it became near a constant sonic boom at his miniaturized level, blue light arcing along its length. He smelled the zap in the air, dodged instinctively and took them lower as the ersatz lightning crawled up to flow and spark along the ceiling panels he'd just been parked on. "Glad we moved, huh?"

The ant flew on, sedate in the face of a pylon that might as well now be a bug-zapper, taking him in for a spin around the activated structure. Getting a closer look, Scott realized it wasn't a new activation – it was closer to overclocking. "Now that looks promising. Okay, let's wait for these weirdos to step off for a bit, then we're going to take a couple fast passes over the consoles."

Antoinette's round little head bobbed around as it flew by the pylon without drawing notice, cheerfully agreeing to its hive-master's command as much as a bug could.

. . .

Scott tugged off his helmet as he finished coming back to his full height, tossing it to the distracted Loki where he sat on a recessed step in the floor, obviously deep in thought. Loki caught it easily without looking up. He couldn't blame the guy for the seating choice, it beat the hell out of the rest of the furniture. Three god-awful bone-benches and some sort of sleeping chaise that looked like it belonged on the set of a particularly weird David Cronenberg flick. The cushions, such as they were, seemed completely untouched. The dude was not in a napping mood. "That was a good play, man. I got the whole power grid, plus I tagged the shield pylons _and,_ for a bonus, got eyes on where the overflow gets routed."

"Excellent." The compliment was sincere, yet also still faint-sounding in the still, staticky air. "Thank you, Scott."

"What's eating you?"

"Stomach acid, at the most essential level. Just one more physiological delight our species holds in common with each other." Loki set the helmet down and pushed a hand through his long, bedraggled hair, allowing a bit of dry self-deprecation to come into his voice. "I'll process your data momentarily. Let me just sit here and angst another minute or so, if you kindly would."

"Okay. Cool." Scott dropped onto the step relatively close to him, not sure where the alien stood on things like personal space and willing to err on the side of lots of caution. "You wanna talk about it?"

The silence suggested the obvious answer.

"Can I talk, or do you need to angst quietly? Because I get weird in long silences. They freak me out." He watched Loki's face turn away, the eyes flickering as if he were studying the frankly crappy room. "Can I ask questions and then apologize a bunch of times if I say something that pisses you off?"

The response to that he got was totally unexpected. "I think I'm cursed to wind up amidst people that only speak to me in absolutely bizarre rapid-fire missile attacks." The pale face came back to him, stuck between amused and aghast. "Scott. Can I stop you? I doubt I can. I've never had luck shutting any of you people up. You just _go._ After a while it's so maddening that it's nearly a charming feature of your race entire." A hand waved at him. "Go on. I give up."

With permission granted, Scott wasn't quite sure where to begin. He shrugged, getting a disbelieving glance. Then he figured out where he wanted to dig. "I did actually read the file shortly before I got picked up. Your file, I mean. The big Avengers brief on the Battle of New York, all that. Some of the SHIELD stuff, too. I... should have probably admitted that earlier."

The shoulders sagged a little, plain to see in the black tunic he'd changed into instead of the armor. A green eye stole a glance. "And you still came along, knowing what you know? Lovely. You're just as mad, then."

"Because this is kind of the big deal showdown. And, I mean. I'm not a hypocrite. Usually." Scott put his elbows on his knees, knotting his red-gloved hands together to study them. "I always know what day Saturday is because that's the day I got an extra half hour in the yard at San Quentin for good behavior. I still go for walks at that time. It's a habit. You get a lot of habits in prison."

A long fingered hand came up to rub at Loki's face.

"I was strictly white collar level, you know? Minimum security. Kept my nose clean and made the right buds through my cellmates, so I never had to do solitary or get my ass beat too hard. So the best and the worst for me was the time outside. I got to look up at the sky and think about how, every day for three years, I got myself in a position where looking was the best I was going to get for a long time. About how I totally screwed it up with my wife to the point that we got divorced, how there was gonna be a real chance that I might not get to see my kid again. And what to try and do to fix it when I got out." He shrugged. "And I got out and damn near screwed it all up immediately. Then I got a second chance. That shit's rare. So I dove in. I mean, what better offer was I ever going to get?"

Scott swore he heard the softest grunt of agreement. For whatever reason, there was a quick moment where the corner of Loki's mouth turned into a wry smile.

"I saw kinda the same pattern in the file. Kinda, because you weren't exactly white collar crime. And regardless of any of that, I got a reason to fight. To do this, you know? Even if I read that file and assumed the worst of it was still the real part. So you're stressed, I get it. Every week of my life seems like the scariest right now. But I got a reason to keep going." He lifted a thumb off from the back of his other hand to gesture it at Loki. "You?"

"Hanh. I assume your noble 'reason' is the child you refer to." Loki looked over as Scott immediately dug into his suit. "No, no, don't do that ridiculous human thing where I have to look at pictur-"

The phone was unceremoniously shoved into his hand as he tried to wave Scott away. Unable to avoid it, Loki found himself studying not so much the bright, cheerful-looking girl but the absolutely hideous toy she clutched protectively in her arms. "What in the name of Helheim's janitor _is_ that thing?"

"Her name's Cassie. I got five bucks says you'd like her. Also, if you weren't just remarking on the rabbit I got her for her birthday, we're gonna rumble. I might not win, but I will bust my ass trying to break yours."

"I meant the toy. She's _clearly_ warped. You might have just saved yourself that five dollars." Loki passed the phone back, shaking his head slowly.

"So, what are you fighting for? I listened to you barf for what felt like an hour, you would obviously rather be anywhere else in the universe and your file didn't exactly say you were Mr. Noble, Savior of All. What's your win?" Scott rolled his eyes when he still got the silent treatment. "Because, I mean, maybe try and focus on that."

"That's the _only_ thing I am focusing on!" Loki stood up and paced to the other side of the room, visibly annoyed with him. "I understand what you're trying to do, and that's quite nice, but please, don't think I'm here somehow unawares of the stakes I've actually placed on the table."

Scott winced, hoping he hadn't set the guy off more than was wise. "Yeah, so... guidance counselor isn't my second choice for a job."

"You were and are a burglar, harmless and mild. Many things you did had some misguided good intent and you can justify them well enough when you rest at night. I _do not_ have that luxury."

Scott stared at him, figuring if silence worked so great for the other guy, hey, he'd give it a shot.

Loki stared back, something hot and wild and emerald lighting up in his eyes at the quiet duel. The effect was not quite sane, and a lot frightened. "Do you know what it's like to fall? Truly, really fall? So far down and for so damned long that in madness you mistake it for flight? For freedom? That you can look to yourself hanging in the black and say that you are at last completely unfettered? That what you do no longer has consequence, for you have no care and none care for you. And still, you fall, shattering _everything_ as you pass.

"Do you know what terror is? It is the moment you crash, looking about yourself at the crater you've made and realizing that the consequences you have ignored as meaningless have reached out and stolen what few things you secretly hid from yourself until you do truly have nothing. And now I find I have somehow crawled away from that pit, slowly, taking some few gleaming pebbles to remind myself I am yet alive on the ground and not so alone. Now I have dragged myself to the very edge of a new chasm to behold the same cliff-face where so much of this began. Not where the fall started, mind, but where I stuck fast on a cracking limb and then chose again to jump into the dark, still thinking this was my freedom. I did things in the dark to survive that had I any courage, I would have died instead. In my cowardice I let the monster win and only late have I torn free of its claws. That's _my_ damned cycle. That was my Ragnarok. If I fail here, those last few consequences don't condemn me to ash. It will be the ruination of all of _you_ , the destruction of all those I have come to, despite myself, care for. Yes, Scott. I have something to lose. And I can bear to lose no more."

"Trying counts, man." Scott tried to go for comforting.

Loki shook his head, calming somewhat having poured out a piece of what he was carrying. "Not for this. I live in the grey and it suits for much. But not for this. Last chance pays for all. And I deeply fear we are going to lose things along the way. Already that eats at me. That's no small part of the distress you've seen."

Scott frowned, catching some nuance in the mess the guy had just dropped. "Can you do anything for that chick's sister?"

Loki crossed the room again and settled next to Scott with a heavy sigh, closer than where he'd started. His bony wrist draped across his knee, the fingers of that hand knotting and picking at themselves. "I'm very afraid the answer will be 'no.' Thanos is with the stones constantly now – by my own design, naturally – and while I am no small scholar of those things, it's simply not enough. He has built his whole life to this purpose. When I attend in these recent hours, I sometimes try and slip around the rooms in illusion's veil, trying to see what I can. But much of the research, his other stolen treasures, he left behind in Sanctuary. And the Soul stone, from what little I _do_ know, is intensely dangerous. I'm afraid to even touch that one, where some of the others I might and have influenced slightly." He stretched the fingers in a gesture of new thought. "If I could get a chance to gain access, the Mind stone might find a path in my stead, but our friend there is busy. Distracting him would be a severe risk."

"Is it worth it?"

"One life versus all the universe." A haggard look creased his brows, tightened his cheeks under his eyes. "And yet, so many I know now and respect would tell me yes, it's worth it. So I made the promise. So I will heed it, as best I may. When you return next, I'll have decided if this notion is viable."

"I'm gonna stand by what I said. Trying counts." Scott rapped a knuckle against his helmet. "If you're feeling a bit more chill, could you get that download going, please? I gotta switch ants and go see if those really are the weapon bays up on nine like we think."

"Humor me. What's this other ant's name?"

"Antigone."

"Dear gods." A soft but real laugh escaped Loki as he stood up, taking the Ant-Man helmet with him. "All you absolutely daft and deranged humans. It _would_ be a shame to screw this up."


	27. Intelligentsia

27\. Intelligentsia

. . .

Tony Stark cut a hard right as Friday tracked Rhodes in his Iron Patriot suit taking a sharply angled detour along the upcoming other side of the enormous black vessel. A notification popped up in his HUD to let him know he was collecting a dangerous amount of heavy ice along the shoulders and back of his current model of Iron Man suit – Model IX Mark 2. Space capable. Just in case he had to fully breach the Earth's atmosphere to get more intel on the thing looming just on the very edge of their atmosphere. He was deeply hoping it wouldn't come to that. "Pop the flaps, clear us off."

 _"_ _Yes, sir,"_ said his current AI, Friday, in her crisply even voice. " _Flight efficiency will be restored to normal levels in three-two-"_

He heard the rasp of the ice cracking off the exosuit rather than seeing it. His eyes stayed on task, watching the viewscreen that showed the impenetrable ship looming less than two clicks ahead. If he looked up, he would see the way the sky faded to a dark purple littered with stars. He didn't look up at the sight even though all the pictures in National Geographic made it look incredibly cool. More important than sky-surfing the view, suffering a panic attack right now would be some god-awful timing on his part. "Rhodey baby, you in position over there?"

 _"_ _I'm here, Tony. Corp's right behind. We're all set."_

"Okay. Stunt-run _numero seis_. Punch the transmitter, see if it-"

A red-bordered alert immediately filled his screen as he entered testing range, followed by the HUD's graphical render of a new ripple across where their readings showed the _Mortalus's_ energy shield.

Rhodes's suit read the same thing. _"Tony? Abort! Abort!"_

Stark didn't waste time responding. Friday would do it for him, capable of updating his status directly to the Patriot suit. His hands came up ahead of him meanwhile, repulsors in all four limbs firing off to abruptly cut his acceleration while the reactor flared blue and wild to be sure he had enough juice. His mind was busy piecing together what he'd just been told by his multiple feeds. He let his frustration out in his audibly tense voice. "Don't just abort the test run. Kill the whole thing. Nova Corp, peel off and get back into safe range. We gotta jump back to base and re-math this business. Also, _shit._ Don't even think about giving me crap for swearing, Cap, this is hands down the worthiest time for it. My use of profanity could lift Thor's hammer right now."

" _Stark?"_ Steve Roger's voice crackled onto the line as the five dots showing the small yellow ships veered out of the target field. Rhodes followed them. _"What happened? What'd you read?"_

"Ship's shield has been reinforced since our last run, which according to my new scans is like saying cockroaches are a little tricky to get rid of." A mutter to Friday gave him the rest of the initial set of new readings. "God damn, the subtype wave resonance that thing is emitting is gonna go off like a sonic boom if we try and bounce off of it. I'm shocked they're not blowing out, thing's gotta be running like a supercharged Ducati on the Autobahn."

 _"_ _Corp guys said he's got experimental engines according to their best intel. Titan tech, top of the line. Whatever that all is. They sound impressed, so I'm impressed."_

"Whatever that is is what the Great Wall was to the Mongols." He hovered high above Manhattan atmosphere, still pulling the energy feed and braced for any retaliatory attack that might come. "Let me clarify just how bad this is. We hit that thing, the absorption and subsequent reverb effect could potentially cut off the tops of half the skyscrapers in the city in five seconds or less. And frankly, not only have we just rebuilt the place, but we have been getting some _serious_ side-eye from world governments over the last couple years. We've all heard a little about that and the piper's looking for a payout. Maybe we should try the next stunt when the ship goes over British Columbia and scare the crap out of some moose instead."

 _"_ _Take your own advice and get out of there. We'll hash it out here at base."_

Tony kicked at the sky, repositioning himself for a straight-shot flight plan back to the tower. The ship continued to loom behind him, mute. He was privately thankful for that much. If the shields were _that_ hardcore, he had a lot of feelings about whatever goodies they were going to have in their launch and weapons bays. All of them made him want to chew a whole bottle of antacid tablets when he got back. "Roger that, Mr. Rogers. On my way."

 _. . ._

Natasha wasn't watching the feed of the latest attempt to cut the invader's defenses, although it played quietly on the other flat monitor set into the table under her elbow. Clint came up next to her and slid onto the stool with plenty of noise to say he was just visiting, watching her loop the security cam footage of Loki approaching Vision as dawn broke. Her fingers tapped on the screen while she watched, the superspy deep in thought.

"It's not good up there, Nat."

"I heard," she said, distracted. "Shield boost." The footage paused at the touch of her fingertip, restarted. There was no audio. The original recordings caught almost nothing that was said between the two figures, the only oddity in the footage. "You still close to Tony's side these days?"

He shrugged. "We get along. With Banner out of the scene, he likes to have someone to bounce off of. Pick on, a little. I guess I do alright."

"Banner." Pause. Restart. For a moment Clint regretted bringing up the name. She seldom did. When she spoke again, her voice was still quiet. "What does this remind you of, Clint?"

"Nat, I know you're probably pissed because you got convinced to give Loki a cha-"

She looked up at him, her calm expression proving out what she said next. "I'm not pissed, Clint. I'm in disbelief. I already made the call, verifying my guess." She tapped the monitor with its looping footage. "What do you see?"

Clint frowned, trying to see it as she might. He was a damn good spy and tactician in the field, but Romanoff was often on a whole other level. He gestured at the footage with an open hand, certain he wasn't right. "Loki walking into the joint big as life, calmly pulling the stone out of Vision's head like no big deal, he does stuff like this all the time."

"And that's all you're supposed to see. _Supposed_ to, Barton." She gave him a wry, lopsided smile. "It's Stuttgart all over again. He wasn't hiding."

"I was up my own ass with his mind control when that part went down. I only ever checked out the after-action report like twice because it still gives me headaches to go over it. I wouldn't have caught the parallel." He knotted his broad brow together, looking at the footage again. He folded his arms together and dropped both elbows onto the edge of the table, leaning in hard. "You said you verified something already?"

"I called Coulson back, few hours after I dropped him the Latveria report. I had some things on my mind. We had a brief but friendly conversation that ended with him apologizing for the bit where he underestimated my intelligence. Kind of didn't blame him, considering the topic. But regardless, that's okay, because we're still on plan. If anything, I've made a few upgrades to it. I've got SHIELD's back on this, Barton. And I'm pulling you into the play right now to be sure the Avengers _also_ stay on plan."

" _Shit._ " Barton's brow smoothed out as he got it.

She nodded to him. "The same trick, for the same audience, for the exact same result. He moved and we got mad and jumped into action. Right on cue. And it was also a message to the few people that knew how to read it. A timer. You get a bug into Tony's ear. It'll be easy for you. It's a big universe, Clint. There's a lot of people that don't want Thanos on their lawn, might try to help where they can even if they can't do much. And it's a big ship. You never know what might happen, or when. Especially with the shields spun up so hard now. So many little things can go wrong." Clint nodded along as she talked, naturally dozy eyes widening into something much sharper. "Tony got something useful out of these test runs. He's getting the latest scanner reads and I guarantee his next act will be to start running programs to live-track the shield's projection at all times. For variables in the flow to exploit if nothing else, make a dampening counterattack. The important thing he needs to do, and what you need to keep him on, is to be sure he's in a mind to notice the very second when that resonance _stops_."

A thickly calloused hand came up to rub across Barton's eyes. "That's when we gotta haul. But are we sure that's the play? Absolutely sure?"

"Thor left just as the insurgency attacks started, sent word he was going to Asgard to work on another angle for backup. But we got him on a handful of satellites about an hour later, still on Earth. I checked them out. He went across the Coral Sea. Towards Bruce's last known position. And again, several hours later. Same general location. Satellite picked up an energy burst we associate with Thor's bridge right after. Isn't that something?" She finished off the question with an odd little lilt. "I'm sure, Clint. We're all being pushed into a splintered swarm attack the moment those shields go down. The Corp's ships, we need them to stick close for a while. So those of us without environmental suits can get on board. Guess it works out if we can't even approach right now. It's almost like... someone planned around things you're not normally supposed to be able to plan around."

Barton shoved himself away from the table, sold. "I'll keep on Stark. Won't be difficult, he's kind of whipped up right now." He looked down at her. "Which arrows should I bring when we go hot, you think? I got a new boomerang trick. It's stupid but it works."

"Bring them all, Clint." She gave him one of her small, slight smiles. The ones that were sometimes the most genuine. "Especially the stupid boomerang."

. . .

The latest 3-D image overlay from Scott's helmet locked into place, projecting perfectly above the tablet Loki had laid atop the fascinatingly hideous bench. With no small amount of dour humor set fast on his face, he was seated on the floor next to his work instead of on the bench itself as he manipulated the nearly completed map.

"I'm not confident getting the throne room and the surrounding wing. They are _way_ more alert over there, and there's some sort of motion sensing thing going on that I can't quite pinpoint." Scott sat on the other side of the bench, distractedly drumming his fingertips along the top of the helmet in his lap.

"That's acceptable, it's all areas I've personally witnessed. I can fill in manually. You've done excellent work to now." Loki expanded the image, studying the aft of the ship more carefully than the rest. He frowned thoughtfully. "Best solution is the obvious one, which will also of course be the noisiest one. Once the shields go down, Coulson can pilot directly into any one of the opened hangars and set a beacon for Thor and the others. Heimdall can place them as Gamora's crew arrives through the same tunnels we found ourselves in. The Avengers should then either take note of SHIELD's advance or be goaded into following by some other incident. _Should_ , mind. Difficulty – there's a fair lot of deck thralls and guards on all accessible floors to make it a little frisky for everyone involved."

"Everyone on our side's gonna be loaded for bear."

"Still. As much as we're going for loud and noisy, it's all rather..." He dug around, looking for a relevant historical parallel that would mean something to the human. "Normandy."

Scott winced.

"About how I feel, forced to honesty." Loki sighed, scratching absently at the side of his neck. "And while this is going on, I must be at Thanos's side as often as possible. I _must_ be untouchable until then, the devil at his ear. I can't risk exposure until the very last second." He blanked the image, leaning back to prop himself up on his hands. "So. As it stands, we can't trigger all this off just yet. I need a distraction before the main event, Lang." He caught himself and brought up a hand in correction. "Scott. Thanos will draw close to his gauntlet and his prizes the moment things go awry for him and I need him away if I want any chance to connect with the Mind stone. Try and enact this new wrinkle in our plan."

"You still worried it puts the guy in the rock at risk?"

"The 'guy' _is_ the rock. The identity and the infinity is indivisible by now." He smirked, the expression mild as Scott rolled his eyes to show he was already lost with the more ethereal mechanics of whatever was going on within the Infinity Stones. "But yes. It may well soften whatever shields, whatever boundaries he's made about himself to fend off Thanos's grasping desires. It remains the only option, unfortunately."

Scott nodded. "Okay. What do I do?"

He got a wry smile for his first response. "You do nothing for now. Remain here, rest, and consider further how you will complete your act of sabotage in the control bay. See if you have any more notions on doing similar to the weapons, or even to the power core. I'll trust to your judgment there. Your only goal to come is to sow chaos in every circuit you can manage. As for me, I've got to pay a visit down to that horrible little science lab."

"What's down there?"

"Lorelei. I hope. She's been there a great deal of late, I'm to understand. And fortunately for even my capable sense of direction versus this compass-eating hellhole, that was one of the first places you mapped." Loki stood up, smoothing the angular black tunic he wore into place with a graceful hand. "Don't bother with the chaise, it's absolutely ruddy awful. You're better off taking the cushions and picking a corner. Enjoy a nap, camping amongst the vivid scenery and lovely décor of what Thanos thinks is real architecture." He finished it with a dramatic shudder, intended to amuse.

"Yeah." A red-suited hand reached out to pat the bony bench in between what seemed to almost be two jutting vertebrae from some unknown creature. "We definitely gotta stop him. For God, country, and IKEA."


	28. Visiting Hours

28\. Visiting Hours

. . .

Lorelei tossed the notes she had been reading to the table with a violent lack of courtesy, ignoring the Chitauri slave-medic when it scurried in close enough to quickly mop at the tray of inert chemicals she'd inadvertently dashed apart. "That's all rubbish. Practically barbarians, you lot, little better than machines yourselves. All your value's in pain. Not one of you an _actual_ damned healer. Eir was a stuffy creature, but _she_ knew a few things." She turned in a huff, finding her field of vision abruptly filled only with black.

"Well, yes, that's rather their explicit point," said Loki, his voice mild from somewhere above the sea of darkness she beheld. She looked up to find his thin face and its lifted black eyebrow virtually hovering over the deeply dyed tunic. "Any actual healing is more of a... viable but unintended side effect, we might say. Not that I have firsthand experience. Which, well, actually, I rather do. _Did_ you wash out of Eir's healer program? I hadn't noticed. I was busy at the time."

"Oh yes, being the proper doting prince at Odin's arthritic knee, doing princely things in princely ways. As you were in your youth, bent low like any other of that house. We all know the road of thy loyalties. And if you must - I had little patience or fain aptitude for the art," said Lorelei with a haughty sniff. "By the time formal selection happened, my Amora had already bartered elsewhere for our better and grander learnings."

"Ah, I recall. Fabled sorceress Karnilla. The seditionist with aims to make twee and provincial Nornheim a tenth realm under her rule alone. I'm certain that was a healthy relationship for all involved." He smiled affably down at her. "A shame her attempts came to such a... blunt ending."

"Loki, if you came below to the laboratories for pleasant company, you're going about it in an _extraordinarily_ unique way." She smiled right back, showing teeth. He knew perfectly well how the would-be Queen had died for her crimes, goading her with it.

"I came for company, I suppose you might say, but pleasant? In this environment? I'll accept anything that doesn't _chitter_." He bowed slightly, waving her towards the exit with an elegant hand. "I'll ask formally, then. Might we talk?"

She caught the edge in his voice, a small tone meant for her hearing alone. An important request. Well-trained, she didn't bother to look at the closest 'medics.' She lifted her chin instead, still twisting the tiniest tip of a knife just because she could. "And refuse a request from Thanos's own favored little boy? I know better, my lord."

He smiled back, eyes narrowing just enough to tell her she'd at least nicked the edge of a bone.

. . .

Loki grabbed at her shoulder to guide her down a smaller, less traveled service corridor once he knew it was safe to do so. Another few turns and they were in an oily, filthy nook so disused the smells of its builders were still haunting the air. Still he searched the corners of it with sharp eyes and muttered spells, looking down other hallways to ensure they were alone.

"My, aren't you the master trail-finder here." Lorelei's question was voiced innocently enough, the smile accompanying it utterly the opposite. "You must spend _so_ much time just wandering these ugly little warrens to know them this well."

He ignored her intrusive jabs until he was certain they would be unobserved, his hand still keeping her shoulder in its tight grip. Then he looked down at her with a face stripped of all its usual sardonicism. It made her falter slightly to see that much seriousness in him. A rare event. The last time she had personally witnessed it, it had been at her own trial for treason against the throne of Asgard. Her face tightened at the memory.

Before she could rally another cutting remark in her own defense, he shook his head to steer it away. "To steal a phrase from my sibling, I am _not_ in a gaming mood."

"That's unusual for you, Loki, as all ever seems to you as mere games and shadows," Lorelei spat instead. She shook his hand off and stepped away from him, her general ire with his presence fading slightly against his terseness. "What do you want?"

"I want to attempt to keep up my end of that promise, Lorelei, which means I must come and ask you keep up yours." He frowned, seeing the way that caught her attention. "I need a distraction, something to draw Thanos away from the stones long enough for me to try something."

"Try what, then?" She searched his face and found nothing to pry free. He was always good at that when it counted. She clucked a little and sighed, looking away.

"I won't answer that, and you're smart enough to know why. Suffice to say it's not some backhanded twist of yet another hidden knife. I've no interest in having you at my throat again over insults implied or genuine. But I need time. An hour, optimally." He barked a short and dour laugh. "Honestly, if you could somehow get him to visit one of this world's tropical lands for about a day, mayhap purchase a few hideous souvenirs to add some color to this place, that would be marvelous. That's a bit much, however, so I'll take an hour instead and make do."

She clucked again, looking back as her mind raced ahead. "I can guarantee half," she said after filtering through a number of options and dismissing the bulk of them outright. A few had more potential and she calculated them in between his words. If she were fortunate and did this right, she wouldn't have to deploy her ultimate hidden card to accomplish it. She would if she must, not for his sake but for her sister's. But she might not have to.

"Can you guarantee half and promise to try for more?" He tilted his head as he regarded her, still with that distanced, careful expression. "It's your sister on the line; a bargain not to my benefit but to you alone. Think with care and answer me with honesty for just this once between us."

She flung a hand in the air at him, settling on a plan as she did so. "I'll do that, then. I promise I'll try for more, but I _won't_ guarantee it. I will do all I can in this matter, yes, sworn and said. Keep some ear to the door if you might, and don't let him find you rustling his bedclothes like some common pervert."

"May what powers there be protect us all from that vision." He scowled at her for the jest. "And what do you have in mind? How will I know you've done it and my route's clear?"

Lorelei beamed up at him, fully aware of the falsity of her expression. She reached up and patted his cheek with her hand, gentle enough to pass for real. "Oh, Loki. You'll know."

. . .

The tea had gone cold in the warm air caught gently between the tall and lushly green hedges of Doctor Strange's lawn, a space of peace bigger within than it would seem from the surrounding streets – another feature of his uniquely magical architecture. It should not have lost its own flavorful warmth, but still, their drinks did. The pair were distracted, and their caged atmosphere disordered as well in response. Death tapped her finger against the side of the thin bone china cup yet half-filled with the disregarded Assam blend, her young and brown face thoughtful under a brightly embroidered cowl. Along its edges, lively green leaves expertly needled flowed delicately to frame her gaze where she then fixed it plain on the sorcerer. "They need you, Strange. There is no stable, well-removed crux on which to stand here. There is only death and life, and even _I_ took a side long ago. They – them Avengers who stand in fury, and the SHIELD that holds the line – they need all they can with them when Loki opens the door. You must be among their number when the moment comes."

"It is simply not the way of those who have held my duty before me," he said in response, not argumentative but worried. "Not one of us, from the beginning of time to now. I defend, I do _not_ enter into mortal fray on such a scale as this."

"And yet you've been in smaller frays before, freely." She put up her hand before he could open his mouth. "Though I know you felt those were matters tied more closely to you. But have you asked your Gods their opinion? No, you have not. I tell you there's never _been_ such a situation as this. The Stones gathered close before, true, and then they fell away again, scattered. That has been the fragile balance. I've watched this occur, countless times. Nothing like this. Thanos is implacable, and he has the fervor of his beliefs etched deep within him. So strong that even my protests only urge him forward, as if he in his madness knows better of Death than I myself." There was a small laugh, bitter and full of careful anger. "You must do this. Ask Hoggoth and Oshtur. Ask your Agamotto. They will bend to me. This is defense, Stephen. It is the last defense. No other has held fast against me when I call, and you will not either. You will go. Travel with our friend Coulson. They will be at most risk upon approach. Be SHIELD's own shield."

The lips parted at her admonishment, stretching the dark goatee into sincere protest before he shook his head in silence instead. "And leave you here alone, in this vulnerability you chose?"

She gently pushed the saucer aside, reaching out to put a small, warm hand on his wrist. "I have learned something in these months, Stephen, from the friends I have made. I cannot run from this. I never could. I said long ago I looked for a place to stand. I found it. And so I will stand. Before _him_ , if I must. Frightened, true, that mortal gift. But I am Death and I can stretch myself far beyond the petty realm of fear."

He heard something in the edge of her voice and looked up to see it in the sharpness of her eyes.

The thin steel hardened. "What's coming, we cannot stop it as we are now. We must _always_ become more, and we cannot let the sacrifices that have already been done be forgotten." The steel softened with a kinder smile. "And I'm _hardly_ vulnerable."

Doctor Strange placed his other hand atop hers with all his decorum, bowing his head low in acceptance. "Mistress."

"Doctor." She chuckled and pulled her hand away. "Do warm the tea again, please. It's not proper, but damned if I'm to see us waste time brewing another pot before you must leave. I'll finish the rest after you depart, if you don't mind. I'd like to enjoy the air while I can."

"So soon?" He reached out with a gloved hand, satisfied as twin trails of steam began to curl through the air between them.

"Yes, Doctor. Too soon."

. . .

Loki was hidden in the corner of a seldom-used wing of the ship close to Thanos's chamber and throne when the scurrying of the Chitauri began in the halls. They chittered and they hooted, and he froze solidly in place, wrapping himself as deeply as he could in the shadows without using that exhausting full invisibility. He had no idea how much strength of will he was going to need when connecting with the Mind Stone this time, so he was prepared to use as much as possible. If he were fortunate, Vision would know it was his touch and make communication easier only a second after he entered contact.

Loki had long since become comfortable with the fact that almost nothing in life went so fortunately. As it were, although he'd assured Scott Lang he'd done fine, there were more than a few pieces of these halls he simply had no mental map for. That could be a risk, if he were unlucky.

He scooted that much further back into the darkness as the more humanoid guards hollered something to each other about a small fire in the medical labs. He rolled his eyes, unable to help himself. Then he made out more shouted words, piecing the story together. A sudden fight broken out between sisters with Lorelei in full weeping mode, imploring to their great lord if he would heed that only his word would bring the peace. Woe and wrack and ruin, my great lord, only thee.

Apparently it _was_ getting somewhere with the warlord still ensconced within the chambers. Amora might be tethered to eternal loyalty by that piece of her soul, but Lorelei had groveled enough, charmingly enough, over the past couple of months to endear herself somewhat to the shadow king. He was never above the need for a well-fed ego. If she tore at her breast, the beast might come. For blood, if not comfort. _Well, little sister, you were always nigh as good at dramatics as I am so oft said to be. And Thanos's realm itself all but a theatre befitting only the best._ He shook his head as the doors to the warlord's sanctum slammed open, waiting until the sound of Thanos's thudding steps drew close enough to make his heart race and then faded again.

 _I do hope you've not just put this all to disaster by getting the both of you killed for your antics._ He allowed this last sour thought before taking two deep breaths to time himself and then rushing forward into the inner chamber, victoriously unseen.

Caught out in the open for several seconds longer than he wanted to be, he swept the room for threats and found none before pressing his back to the wall anew. Still hung in the air around the garish gold gauntlet were the six stones, and among them the one he'd come for. The doors swiveled shut behind him and he crossed to where the small yellow shard held firm in the air, taking another long and careful inhale to balance himself.

With two hands – bare, no choice but to risk raw contact on this short and unprepared notice – he reached up on either side of it as if to make a shallow cup. Another inhale, the center of his self anchored as best as he could, and then he pressed two fingertips carefully to paired facets high on either side.

The world around him swirled into havoc, filling itself with a trillion voices fighting for air before filling him entire with the chaos instead. He gasped, dropping to his knees with his fingers still locked against a stone brutally awake and empowered.


	29. Tick-Tock

29\. Tick-Tock

. . .

 _They sang and they screamed and they hummed and they whispered, the countless voices throughout the universe clamoring for their place in the wavestream constructed of all their minds as one, the boundaries between them long dissolved here in the place that was their realm alone. Some died and some lived, and some were born, entering that violent sea of consciousness with their firstborn cry. All of them rushed around him in a bid to be heard. There was nothing but the relentless press of their minds. Eternity and existence all in one._

 _ **Loki.**_

 _He grasped for purchase at the sound of his name and found his own sense of self lost deeply enough to feel the slender thread slip through him, uncaught. He might have been shrieking in pain. He couldn't know, hoped he wasn't for the sake of his frozen shell still there on Thanos's hellish ship. Voiced sorrows followed hushed joy and he fell between them until there was only the black, and the black, and there was SOMETHING on the other side of a great shield that held silence as its mortar and stone and it hungered. Slavered. Craved. There were screams, unholy, impossible screams as the horror and the void slammed eternally against the Mind's boundaries, and his fragments of self recoiled from that presence as if it burned. It was a war that had been going on for eternities now, the first blow struck only hours hence. No paradox, only the truth of this infinite layer._

 _ **LOKI.**_

 _He flung out again and this time found his 'hand' gripped by another one, strong, and made of familiar red vibranium skin that felt real enough to cut through the weightless, drifting psychic pressure of infinity itself. Abruptly, the silence of that wall folded around him like a warm and golden cloak. He blinked once as he re-asserted himself, twice, and then-_

 _. . ._

"I'm here," Loki said, rasping the words to be heard hopefully by him and the stone alone. His flesh felt burned, the tips of his fingers drenched in raw fire. He could see again, the stone yet in his grasp but control no longer an issue. Not by his will or command, he realized with rueful annoyance, but the stone's. "I... I apologize for the abrupt visitation."

 _I see it within your thoughts,_ whispered the stone directly into his brain, still touched with that soft android accent. The effect was unearthly now, almost frightening. _Your purpose here._ _All these souls, lost. I cannot find one alone in the void, Loki. That is my sibling's domain, and it would consume me if such things were wholly possible. As it is, it will consume my anchor, my identity, and leave me only a raw Mind for Thanos to use. I will not have my moralities then. I will lose my Self._

"Hence the shield you've made."

The pressure of that contained mind drifted away for a moment, then returned, chased by a sense of urgency. _Do you sense it again now, that armor of mine?_

He did, gritting his teeth at the trembling sensation that had begun numbing his hands. It replaced the pain. Regardless of that, he realized that his collision with Vision's defenses had, in fact, weakened the shield slightly. They had been under assault and troubled even before then.

 _I see clearly it was your hope to not cause that much extra strain – and if such occurred, you would hurry the rest to come as best you may to compensate. I thank you for the consideration. That... would be best. Time, my kin, sleeps. But yet it surges, and it is not my ally here._

"I made a promise, Vision, and I try to not take such things lightly, and so, nor do I make them frequently. I knew the risks. You see my apology but I'll speak it aloud for my own sake. I'm sorry. Now... I hear your warnings. Yet I still have to ask, is there anything that can be done?"

 _By whom? By you? No. You have made me aware of the deeper situation, and within that is some new knowledge of exactly how my soul-starved sibling has been corrupted to this implicitly dangerous state. Through it I begin to see the rest. By my measure, you have tried. Your promise is held true._

"By you, then?"

 _All or none must be freed, never alone. Such would also require an assault against my own kind. However, we come to the riddle. I am at risk here, this is known. For I have a soul. But Loki... the Soul itself has a mind long since gone mad with its ravenousness. Thanos feeds it well, and for that it has learned to love him in the same cruel, twisted way he has claimed to love others. We will be in deadlock until one of us shatters the other. This is the riddle of our creation. Fortunate we are the other four still sleep, although they may still be pressed to insensate action. I cannot influence them yet. They will heed a worthy master, and he is very, very close to their dominion. Only I will stand apart, for as long as I can. Did you hear the Soul's screams when you were within? I have become deaf to them. They are a piece of my permanent existence now._

"I heard screams, yes. Little else. I don't have the mind to piece it out as you may, my godlike aspirations aside. Infinity is not for me."

The stone flared into golden light before him as his fingers were released. The pain vanished instantly, replaced with the sense that more time had passed than he realized. The Stone's thoughts echoed in his mind, fading into silence as he pulled further away. _That is better. My fight is here, with fire in my hand against the void and its titan pet. I will do what I must. And your fight... yours must take you swiftly from these chambers. He is returning. I can sense his avarice rippling through all things. Go now. And... do hurry..._

. . .

Scott popped back up to his full height when he was sure it was only Loki hurrying back into the room, although he stepped back at the drawn, exhausted look on the other man's face. His thumb went back on the shrinkage control but he hesitated. He _really_ didn't want to try body-slamming the guy. It just seemed rude. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to trust my instincts?"

"Please don't." Vertebrae be damned, Loki dropped onto the uncomfortable bench with a wince, passing a hand across his brow as he regathered himself. "It's only me, scars and idiotic plans and all. The stone's defenses yet hold and my mind is somehow still my own, but this will not stand for much longer. What you're seeing writ on my face is about ten minutes worth of intricate invisibility work that I had to weave around me while weaving around and running through about twenty of Thanos's guards. Just to complicate it all for myself further."

"Wears you out?"

"Full and true invisibility, yes. You're manipulating visual, physical, and environmental effects in concert along with some minor planar work _.._. Lesser and illusive-based invisibility? Not so bad if you can manage to either not be walked into or can also play against social norms if you _are_ briefly seen. Wear a good suit, act like you belong, be delighted they've got your brother locked up in a room with a bunch of mirrors you can manipulate at need, the usual. Typically what I prefer. Walked right into a SHIELD facility once in just that way, not that it did me much good in the long run." He flapped a hand, dismissing the memory. "Anyway. I've gone on about that before. I had no choice in this matter, lest I ruin my own game in the scant hours before it resolves. Now I have to quickly regain what energy I can before evening attendance."

There was a line of urgency in Loki's voice. Scott caught it with a wince, sitting down on the bench opposite. "It's time to get to the real work, huh? Glad I already got a nap."

"It is. The stone's shields are weakening, and not all to my doing. The deadline is marked plain to be read. Can you kill the ship's own protections?"

"Oh yeah, no problem. Clog up the overflow programming matrix in a couple different ways, then hit a few overrides in the console network to fubar the energy output. That stuff's weird but I think I got it figured it out. They make the consoles simple so these half dead Sakaraan creeps can use 'em, I'm probably good. And if I somehow frig it up, some of my ants should be able to zap 'em into shorting out. And if _that_ doesn't work, I'll just shrink and expand really quick to blow 'em apart. I triple-planned this one. They're going down. Bonus, they're so powered up now that there's a good chance I'm gonna blow a hole right out of the side of the ship for an extra entry point. People below aren't going to miss that, so, if they don't get the other hints, we're still good."

"Well, don't explode yourself out into the sky with it!" Loki's hand dropped while he looked at Scott with more than a little worry, not as convinced of the man's forward planning. "You've got a copy of the interior map to circulate. The arrivals are going to need that information."

Scott shrugged, unconcerned. "There'll be enough of a delay to get me clear. When do you want me to do it?"

"Wait five minutes after I've departed this room before you begin your travel. From there, another ten. Then do what you can. I'll be by his side then, fully distanced from the _accident_." Loki emphasized the word dryly. "He might not buy that ruse for terribly long, but the invasion will take his notice by then." He sighed, sliding down to the ground instead in the vague hope that the bench would make an acceptable backstop for a quick rest. He shifted, not really sold on the outcome of his decision and vaguely wishing he had something caffeinated instead. "I hope."

"There any ways this can go wrong?"

Loki laughed abruptly, low and genuine. "At least a thousand of them. Toss me a cushion, if you would."

. . .

Death sat, calm and still at the white cast-iron table in Strange's lawn. Her hands were folded on her lap under the hem of the long cowl around her face and she looked up utterly unsurprised at the figure who marched her way across the green towards her. "Your name is Nebula," she said with a slight tilt of her head. A thin trail of steam rose from the pretty red teapot before her. "I've been expecting you."

"I'll try to not take that like a threat." Nebula gestured at her with the thin knife in her hand, checking the bone china cups on the table to be sure nothing was hidden in them. "Any cute little tricks I need to watch out for?"

"Strange's assistant is within the house. I've asked him to not interfere. I will ask you – politely – to leave him be. He has no part to play in what must be between us and I do not want the _offering_ of his life. Hear me better than the warlord does. For what it's worth, I take more confidence in your intelligence." Death gestured at the chair vacated not long ago by the sorcerer, smiling faintly when Nebula didn't take it. "As for Strange himself, I have no doubt he expected something like this when I ordered him to leave me. He will also abide by my word, though I suppose it would be fair to tell you that your actions are already known beyond this space."

"Neat. Am I going to have to drag you out of that chair?"

"No, but you're going to have to join me for a cup of tea. I haven't had my fill of freedom just yet. And I assure you, you've no choice but to humor me."

"I hear you're pretty much just a human right now." Nebula's other hand dipped behind her back, came up with a coil of deceptively thin rope. She waggled it. "Might not be in the best place to broker your idea of a deal."

Death lifted a single finger with a whisper, visibly amused as the blue woman dropped a rope that was now on fire despite its synthetic manufacture. "Don't be rude. You're getting what you want, and with far less effort than the _last_ fool that tried to kidnap and imprison me. It however requires taking my last request, so to speak." A snap of her fingers and the fire went out before it did more than brown a few blades of grass. "There are benefits from spending this mortal time among sorcerers. Such as my opportunity to casually mention the fact that we are otherwise unobserved right now. Your... noble host has no eye here. Sit, please."

Nebula nudged the blackened fibers with the toe of her boot, pissed off but not frightened. She dropped into the lawn chair, the knife in her hand tapping a soft staccato rhythm against its glass top. "That's a cute trick you've picked up. You do the one with the cards, too? I've seen that one."

Graceful hands picked up the red pot instead of rising to the bait, pouring one cup and then the other. Death slid one across to the blue woman with another polite tilt of her chin. She smiled easily, the expression reflecting and twisting across the surface of the hot tea in the cup into a frown. "Let's talk for a few moments while we drink. About... subverting expectations. Yes, I think that's a good place to start before I get to the point. That will give our tea time to cool."

 _Tap. Tap. Tap._ "Okay, what?"

"Mmm. I have a few different things in mind than what nonsense you arrived with. Don't worry, I'll not dither overmuch." The smile broadened, crinkling the coppery-brown skin along the girl's cheeks at the frustration in Nebula's eyes. "Oh, let's not play at shadows, Nebula. We both know you're smart enough to not trust Doom any further than you can toss that castle of his. You're looking for... let's say, _other_ options with which to buy your lasting freedom. I just so happen to have come up with a wrinkle or two. Barely any visible change to your current plans. Subtlety, I think, is a fine skill."

 _Tap. Tap_. Nebula pursed her lips as she stared at the immortal incarnation sitting calmly across from her. A moment later, she set the knife down next to the cup she'd been given. "Alright, stepmom. You've got my attention for the next two minutes."

Death lifted both saucer and then cup to blow across the liquid's surface, frowning a little at the impertinence. "Let's do all existence a favor first. I suggest you don't ever call me that again."


	30. Tharn

30\. Tharn

. . .

Scott watched the engine-witches cluster around the set of controls he needed for what was hopefully the last time, tiny breath held in a tiny throat while he mentally kept steady time. Loki would still be in the winding halls on the way to evening attendance at Thanos's side, a situation that, he'd confided to Scott, he desperately didn't ever want to see become routine. The previous encounters were going to be more than enough for him forever. Muscles seemed permanently taut in his thin face whenever Loki talked now. Scott had believed him implicitly.

In any case, Scott had a couple minutes yet before he had to get down to the console itself, so he patted at one of his suit's hidden pockets for about the sixth time to be sure the digital map copy they'd put together was still there. By Loki's estimate, he'd have cavalry arriving in the lower bays in at most twenty minutes after the big bang. The way the guy talked about his friends – carefully, being him, but almost always obviously startled by the fact that he _had_ any - Scott was betting it was going to be more like ten max. He calculated what he needed to do around that guess instead.

He lifted his head again, seeing the world through a faint tint of red as he picked out the tiny outflow conduits above a set of those weird system controllers and their lazily coiling hands that would shuffle air – and him – rapidly through about seven layers of nightmare ship. Crunched schedule. He'd done worse.

His fingers tapped impatiently on the reins of his flying carpenter ant, the front legs of the bug fussing lazily with each other until he finally gave it the silent signal to haul ass. _Clear out, you guys. Come on, come on. I don't wanna tangle until I gotta._

As if they'd heard him, the knot of oddly-shaped figures tightened briefly around the console like they were conferring before they began to shuffle away and out of sight. He looked down and pinpointed the small flaw in the flowing black stone that was going to give him access to his first choice for destruction – a direct channel access that he could hijack and tell to quit safely dumping excess power. Theoretically speaking, the rest would go pretty naturally.

. . .

Thanos didn't look up from the great black stone chair he currently commandeered in place of Sanctuary's floating throne, the base of this brutal-looking seat flowing up as if grown from the metal and mineral that formed the _Mortalus's_ shell. Loki cut a brief but graceful bow that hid his eyes as he approached the seemingly distracted titan anyway, crossing once more to the low place that held a flagon of the warlord's favored drink as the purple fist finally gestured at him in its silent demand. Opposite, still displayed prominently on the far side of the room, was the bare gauntlet and its ring of Infinity Stones. They hung silently in the air, their colorful glow casting an almost cathedral effect of glittering lights against the black walls of the ship. There was no trace of his own interference, nor any sign that the warlord had approached them again himself as yet.

The plain silver goblet was half full when Loki paused at the sound of Thanos shifting, battle-scarred golden armor scraping against the jutting pieces of his seat. His senses pricked at the motion and at something else unheard, suddenly alive as if a physical threat was now dangerously close to his own neck. He listened to air shift in the stillness, felt out for the approach of that aura of ferocious life the Titan exuded. No, the warlord was still seated. He resumed pouring, careful to not hold his breath in obvious tension, waiting for the coming rumble of an explosion through the grates beneath his feet. Something ran along his spine, tickling cold at the nape of his neck like a breath. He knew something had gone wrong before Thanos spoke in the even, low voice of a predator.

"I have always sought children _strong_ enough to withstand me. The final test, Loki. The only one that truly matters. My chosen son... You've passed. It is time, I expect, for us to begin our final work."

Loki set down the heavy flagon of thick red wine with a soft thud at the sound of that quiet, pleased voice, not a single visible tremble in his hands as he turned, the heavy steel goblet now clasped with apparent formal grace between both. Thanos was regarding him with a calm expression that glittered dangerously in his deep set eyes. Loki stared back, empty. His mental stress melted away, leaving only a chilly prickle rippling against the surface his skin so acutely in that uncontrollable primal fear-response that, for a second, he _saw_ the flow of his hidden skin patterns underneath the bloodless white of the backs of his hands. The physical reaction was meaningless to him otherwise. There was no point in panicking now; fear could no longer freeze him. He would simply have to react as suitable to survive whatever happened next.

The rumble finally came, low and deep, flowing like a wave throughout the ship entire. The room rocked from the power of Scott's attack. Neither Thanos, nor Loki, nor the pedestal of glowing Stones moved. The two men remained locked in their silently calculated regard for each other, as if set apart from the chaos Loki's plan had just ignited.

A secondary explosion followed the first, this one a single blast of force so intense Loki could all but _feel_ it as the multiple layers of the external hull – an exoskeleton, in truth – peeled away to expose the guts of the ship. At that sensation, Thanos at last began to smile. Lips wide and full and sharp white teeth gritted hungrily, the apex predator atop a mountain he would scour of invasive life.

. . .

Director Coulson was already halfway through the underground corridor that ran alongside the massive bay containing the parked Theta Protocol Helicarrier before the urgent voice of Koenig on the comm notified him of the second blow-out to be recorded on the _Mortalus_ , his entire core team in tow behind him in full combat gear. He tugged at the bottom of his black uniform jacket, feeling the Kevlar and other experimental protective materials digging into his ribcage underneath. He passed by the door, pointing at the next one with a single urgent finger. Intended for the future day he could afford a backup Heli, right now the second hangar held a much smaller ship of a kind both NASA and SpaceX would probably literally kill him for.

The door to what should have otherwise been an empty bay flung open. Behind him, in unison, about half a dozen firearms were pulled as SHIELD agents dropped into prepared firing routines. Coulson paused with his own sidearm in the low and ready position, his prosthetic hand in the air ready to indicate the attack. On his back, jostled by his abrupt motion, was that trusty experimental weapon built from Asgardian technology. He was kind of looking forward to seeing if it could vaporize a Chitauri at close range, but not _this_ soon.

Doctor Strange's head poked through the doorway, blasé at the sight of mundane weapons drawn. "I would have warmed the starship's engines for you, but frankly, I haven't the faintest how to go about it."

"You could have called ahead." Phil didn't bother to try and curb his exasperation with the sorcerer supreme. He suddenly realized he personally knew two of the strongest wizards currently on Earth, and they were both dicks.

There was probably a message in that somewhere.

"There was but short notice for myself, too, or I might've." Strange looked around at the team, his gaze lingering longest on Agent Johnson sharing the flanking position directly behind Coulson with Agent May. "I call shotgun. Not just to be rude, Miss Johnson, I'll have you know. I _did_ put on a number of protective wards that will assist you against any counter-attack. A visual will help me maintain them. Shall we?" The head disappeared back inside after a courteous little dip of his goatee.

. . .

Gamora slapped at Peter's arm, making damn sure he saw the information tic on the screen about an enormous energy pulse from just on the other side of the horizon. He didn't look back at her, lunging forward to quickly finish one last scan of his maintenance displays. "Rocket? Make goddamn certain the Corp got that, too."

A furry hand popped out to relay the information before going back to rushing across the console in front of him. Groot muttered alongside him, branches reaching out to help scan through the various comm lines. "They got it, they got it. Already chatter on the lines; one of these 'Avengers' people are like pronto commandeerin' three of 'em for their own group. Engines are hot, Quill, let's go join the party before all the good shit's blown up."

"I hear that. Drax? You ready for some fun?"

The fighter's voice was dour. "I am ready to kill."

. . .

The Nova Prime hissed in a surprised breath as the alert flared onto the central monitor, not daring to hope. She'd been in a perfectly superpositioned state of furious and worried since the confirmation that their own carefully secured Infinity Stone had been acquired despite their efforts. Her report to Coulson about the incident had been accepted with a serenity that seemed out of place. She was going to have to have a very careful talk with him afterward, assuming they survived the next twenty-four hours. All she had been able to do meanwhile was wait for a moment like this one. "What's the scans from our ships in range?"

"They verify, ma'am." Her officer's voice trembled. "The _Mortalus_ is currently stopped over a northern hemisphere low-pop region. Shields are down. Total breach scanned in aft port. Hangars are open, we're getting reports of heavy interior damage from both those locations. Weapons systems also offline. Tracking multiple targets on course for an attack run."

"Ours, too?"

"A delay." The Corp officer paused. "They've re-adjusted. Now on course. They'll be in range of the flagship just behind the first strike team from the SHIELD compound."

"Launch the rest. Clear the entire second line by the asteroid belt for action, send them in hot and with full combat authorization. _Keep_ those monsters in the ship's bays with everything we've got; Earth's going to have more than enough problems without a ground assault to manage as well."

"Yes ma'am. Sending command."

. . .

Loki lifted the goblet intended for the monstrous shadow king to his lips and took a slow, thoughtful sip of a wine almost bloodily viscous without breaking the stare between them. Then he let the goblet tilt in his hand with deliberate insult, its contents slopping through the grate into the filthy channels below. "Disgusting vintage, really," he said, still so cold and blank to his very core that he wondered if his mind had snapped in the last minute and he hadn't noticed.

Still that calm, glittering study from Thanos above the terrifying smile. It seemed as if he hadn't heard Loki. "We have needed each other. Iron and steel is what I required to thrive in my shadow. Forged true inside all of you. _Will,_ that crucial ingredient that cannot be forced, only nurtured into its full growth. It is not alway's the father's strength that shapes the child entire, of course. It is a mother's. Here you will all come once more to my side, returned at last, driven by that insurmountable force within you. Driven by a will that never broke, only bent in that craving need to survive. Here you are. Revealed. Your sisters so close that I can taste them in the air. Perfect, Loki. My three living children. _Death's_ children. My pride in all of you is immense enough to shatter the world beneath us. I have made you strong. Today, as you all come home to die in my grasp, you will strengthen _me_ enough to complete my great work. Oh, you have done well."

The teeth parted, one last snake and one last venomous hiss at its ready. "And which of you will bring _Her_ , your mother, to my side to be loved at last?"

Thanos rose in the silence of Loki's answer. In the single motion, always curiously graceful considering the huge shape of the man, Loki caught a glimpse of some rich emerald fabric that had been hidden behind the throne in wait. He didn't have time to think about the implications of Thanos's final trap, not yet. He threw the goblet at Amora as she emerged in a full charge, a guttural word under his breath turning the cup into shards of flying steel accelerating towards her with deadly force. She slapped them aside with a single gesture through the air, still charging forward. Her face was blank with fury, only the eyes alight with more of the same.

Thanos ignored them both as he began to move across the room towards his gauntlet. The floor continued to ripple from the residual shock of internal damage. He strolled, riding the waves of some distant annihilation easily. "Only what I want, Amora. Nothing else. The blood is not for you."

She snarled, the sound loaded with tangible hate of her own. For himself or for the titan? Loki distantly questioned a dozen small things about the relationships here, then ignored them as currently irrelevant, crossing his arms against himself to dampen the absolute hellish rush of wind that buffeted him. He relaxed only slightly as it waned, trying to use the second's grace to rally more strength to his next defense. Any retaliation would take more than he had time to give yet.

The enchantress's raw power had grown in the empty places that had once held a soul, Thanos's bitter idea of a gift. The first assault had _not_ been her strongest. With a cry in an ancient tongue, half-tamed wind came again and blew aside his defenses like parchment. His boots slid against the grate without resistance, no Jotun nor Asgardian muscle enough to withstand that implacable howl. He grit his teeth and tried anyway, feeling slow horror chill the back of his mouth as he caught the glint of gold now on the warlord's fist. _He doesn't have full dominion yet! He cannot bring them to bear!_

Another assault and he was lifted, flung unceremoniously through the door of Thanos's audience chamber with the warlord's voice carried to him on the screaming wind almost lazily. Theatrical mockery. "Go, then, my perfect son. Rend my ship if you like. Puzzle out a way to open this last door I've set between us. And then. Bring your chaos. Bring your warriors to me. Bring them all _home_."

The doors slammed shut with resounding force, the cracks at the bottom and along the sides pouring out the pale blue light that was the Space Stone's heraldry. Loki's cheek was pressed to the filthy stones of the floor where he'd landed in a heap, stunned at the roaring sound of a stable portal that now filled the place where the throne room had been.

His eyes widened, black pupils shrunk to a minuscule point nearly lost within a frozen green by the force of the Stone's shining power. He knew what lay on the other side; Thanos had returned to his blackened, bloody throne to oversee the ruination of all.

There was no sanctuary. Only, as ever and forever, Sanctuary.


	31. Suffer the Children

31\. Suffer the Children

. . .

The insensate, wild roar of distant fury trailed alongside Loki like an invisible companion as he staggered into the comparatively quiet hangar. He put a hand out to steady himself, his vision doubling for a moment at the unwanted, intrusive sense of deja vu that filled him. This time he managed to not fall to the grates beneath him, trapped waiting for the shadow king's next session of that monstrous regard. His face stayed blank with what seemed to be permanently etched horror and his eyes were still filled with spots of burned light, but then his fingers found a place to grasp that filled him with a different kind of familiarity. The halls he'd come through bore more than a little damage from the Hulk's recent rampage. Under his cold palm was a much more geometric crack. The result of some unstoppable force. A hammer's blow, of a kind he knew well from better centuries. It grounded him; comforting nostalgia for a time when war at least made sense in the context of their young lives.

He exhaled in a shudder, looking up as Coulson, with that massive old weapon he knew too well resting in his hands, approached him with a face loaded with that strange and comforting concern. Beyond the human were littered dozens of Chitauri corpses. Some of the other doors to the hangar were welded shut and others sat quiet and empty, giving them all a few moments in a fortified position to work out what came next. He realized he didn't know. He had no answers left.

Coulson jutted a chin at him by way of greeting, still visibly worried through his usual sardonic good cheer. Loki could only imagine how battered he looked to his small friend. "The big guys are running a scout mission to clear a bunch of roads and basically see what they can tear up. Lang's with them, pointing out the sights he couldn't blow up on his way down. He got the external weapons system, for a bonus. So, how's your day going?"

"We don't have time for just how thoroughly I can answer that, so let's remain with 'horrible.'" He looked past Coulson to see the others – Fitz and Daisy, ready and just as worried. Bobbi, May, Mack, and more. Some of them were eying their alien back-up with sheer awe; Mack in particular visibly impressed with the giant tree who'd rooted himself into the floor while they waited. Gamora shared a look with May that seemed loaded with immediate familiarity before splitting from the Milano faction to approach the pair of men. She stopped next to Coulson, looking at Loki instead with that careful, judging expression he knew too well. Loki looked back at her, feeling something past weariness from carrying the latest troubling news. "It's a trap, Gamora. It's Sanctuary's last and most dangerous trap, moulded like all the rest of his monstrosities."

Gamora's skin gained a layer of translucent ash, seeing immediately in the lines of his harrowed face that it was the truth.

He kept talking directly to her, like a confession. "All of this. It's what he wanted and I, like a gods-damned fool, have all but given it to him. He wanted children strong and willful enough that they would turn on him. He believes he succeeded with us three. So that he could then _sacrifice_ us, believing this... this commitment to some personal atrocity will hone him to the fullest. Empower himself enough to control infinity entire. He killed his own birth mother for starts, he'll kill us, then he'll kill everything else to become something even more vast than a God. He's more than mad. He's gone sane in the kind of black horror that consumes all light."

Her hand reached out to him, palm empty. "Loki." She stopped, still too aghast at the revelation to finish it immediately. Then she regathered herself. Her face tightened with a purpose clear to be seen, and she said the last thing he would have expected, what with all those old knives laid sharp between them. "It's not your fault. It's him. It's always been him."

They stared at each other for a long moment, the unexpected small act of mercy from her not something that could be accepted in words. He nodded once, slowly, feeling like his mouth was thick. There was still much more to worry about, he couldn't dwell on this possible new peace either. Three children were needed for Thanos's last great work. "Where's Nebula right now?"

Coulson got an odd look on his face, looking over his shoulder at his team until he met Strange's serious eyes. The sorcerer came halfway across the hangar towards them to give the answer in his steady, classically stentorian voice. "SHIELD's last reading had her arriving in New York this afternoon. And I can tell you she went straight to my home and to our mutual friend, apparently to take her in as some valuable gambit for what we believe is Victor von Doom's own assault on the Mad Titan. Death knew, it seems. Accepted it as part of what must come. Sent me away here to help instead. We've since read almost fifty of his ridiculous robots incoming before they disappeared from all our tracking."

Loki straightened and took two steps towards Strange with his own face gone as slack as a newly dead thing, the implications of what had just been said landing in in his heart like a shard of ice so brittle it stung. Strange stepped back, surprised at the vivid reaction. Loki didn't notice, he'd sunk inward to claw at the recent memory. New import tore itself free to be regarded by that coldly clinical piece of himself. Even that ice began to waver as Thanos's voice rumbled through his thoughts.

 _Which of you will bring Her?_

He whirled away from everyone, nearly doubling over in an absolute storm of frustration, abject terror, and mortal rage. On top of it all, Death Herself snared in a cage he hadn't foreseen. But Thanos perhaps had. She would be trapped and sent before the one man she hated beneath all else in this universe she watched over. Out of trust for himself. There was no courtliness in his agony, no gentler way to put what he felt except to scream it out of his full lungs in the basest and smallest of a mortal's words. _"FUCK!"_

"Language." The casual admonishment was followed by the dull thunk of metal as Captain Rogers himself settled behind his shield with a face that suggested pure and ready tension. Stark was staying just behind to guard their flank, the black tunnels they'd come from glinting faintly with the light from his suit. Steve picked up the shield again, nodding once at everyone's attention in a mild greeting. He started to walk towards Loki, who was very carefully not moving. Green eyes stayed fixed on the approaching threat, his thrashing emotions still written on his face. Steve looked back at Loki, not impressed. "Now, then-"

Phil Coulson stepped between the two warriors, the Asgardian power-rifle depowered and currently pointing at the ground to show he wasn't a threat. The rest of the hangar was mostly silent as a handful of other Avengers filtered in past Tony to see this new and utterly impossible tableau. Softly, there was the sound of roots peeling up from the floor.

Steve stared at him, pausing his stride. His helmet was currently on, obscuring and protecting his upper face, but the shock was still clear in his eyes. "Coulson. Please don't."

Coulson looked straight up into Steve Roger's face and shook his head. He stayed calm, a total lack of doubt making his voice strong enough to carry clear through to every shocked, listening ear. "He's my friend, Captain. You're my hero. I'm not going to move."

It took Steve a moment to absorb that, the hesitation and confusion both audible. "Phil."

"You can either stand there and listen to me explain what's actually going on, or you're going to have to force your way past. I don't think you will. The Captain I grew up believing in wouldn't do that."

"What he did-"

Steve's sentence was finished by someone else. Natasha came up behind the captain, voice low and steady. He could tell by the way she sounded that she was sharing a look with the Director. "Got us this far. Steve, stand down. We're all on the same side this time, I promise."

The vibranium shield wavered in his hands. "Natasha..."

"'Round New York, who hated this guy as much as me? Real, honest hate. Tony, maybe, for the diva competition. Clint, definitely, for what he did. But he got in my head, too. And here I stand." Nat looked up at the side of Steve's face. "Where's Barton now?"

Rogers looked down at her, then back to the knot of Avengers behind him for the answer to her leading question. Yes, there was Barton. Bow at the ready. Tony's mask had peeled back to show a tightly pinched mouth and he was staring at the archer as well. He'd pieced something together in the last moment. Steve saw it, too. He also saw a kind of conviction on Stark's face, a realization the iron man knew which side he was on, and it wasn't Steve's. Barton had been close to the engineer and scientist for a while. The hook was in. "What kind of arrow, Clint?"

"Bolo. I was just gonna trip you if you went for the guy, Cap. Nothing personal on either side, just slow everyone up enough to get sensible again. We have got way bigger problems on our hands to be hashing out the old stuff right now."

"Anger got us in here, Steve. Made sure we'd all pony up for the cavalry play. Cheap shot, yeah." Natasha looked over to Coulson, still holding steady ground between the two poles of his own life. "We can be upset about that, but there was a good point, too. There's no way we would have believed Loki if he said up front that this was going to be an undercover op. No way all of us would have given him that chance."

"And if you had, by some miracle, then Thanos just might not have given us an opportunity to get this close to him." Loki licked his lips, his hands raised as he tried for a careful and diplomatic tone to try and defuse matters further. Strange started looking at him curiously, as if he saw something else going on. "I don't know yet-"

He was cut off by his own startled scream. Red light flickered along the outline of his body as something almost electrical snapped into visibility in front of Coulson only to vanish again. Strange's curiosity became a startled murmur recognizing for all that what they'd seen was a now-canceled spell that made another shield of Loki's own – and not intended for his own protection against a possible attack by an Avenger. Its actual target, Coulson, spun to try and catch his friend as he began to fall. He didn't have to help the heavy alien alone. Groot had closed the distance with surprising speed and quiet, hands reaching out with strong vines to ease the descent. Groot was muttering his signature phrase worriedly, moss flecking loose and hanging for long seconds in the still air.

Wanda Maximoff came from behind the temporarily stunned Barton in a steady march, each step filled with the raw and deadly intent of her anger. Barton dropped to his knee as a tinier wisp of scarlet let him go, an arrow falling out of knocked position. Her hands were aloft and her words were a snarl of vengeance. "Nothing of this changes what he has done!"

Natasha whirled, her gun up and immediately tracking the Scarlet Witch as she moved. She caught sight of Stark's hands charging up. "Let him go, Wanda."

"Your bullet won't stop me, nor Stark's toys. Not until this one has paid for what he did to my friend." Small, pale hands clenched in silent command as Loki finished dropping to his knees. She ignored the hissing mammal in a covering fire position just behind Groot, Rocket's own weapon nearly the size of himself. "Not until I tear into his mind and make him see..." She froze in mid-step as the consuming aura turned her victim's eyes into a searing, brilliant red, color leaching from her face in a rush as if her own veins had been sliced open.

In the new silence, Loki metaphysically pushed back with relative gentleness, tearing the veil from himself with a ragged breath and a waved hand. It was Wanda's turn to stagger. "Grab her," he managed, slumped heavily against Coulson with more than a little absurdity awhirl within him. A well-meaning leaf was tickling his cheek. By the time he'd spoken, Natasha was already next to Wanda, helping her to the ground. Hostilities were immediately forgotten in favor of figuring out what the hell had just happened. Mostly. Rocket was still visibly on edge with white fangs bright against black lips, but that was normal. Gamora came up behind the mammal, leaving a soothing hand on his tiny furry shoulder. "Leave her alone, all of you. There, now, Miss Maximoff. You've torn and you've seen."

Coulson helped Loki drop the rest of the way to the floor without hurting himself. He didn't speak the question, he didn't have to. Wanda was staring at Loki in open comprehension and struck horror, one hand coming up to grasp gently at her own mouth. Her eyes spilled over with tears, causing strands of hair to stick to her face.

"That's Sanctuary you've stolen from me to regard. That's all of it, all the things I can't describe even to my friends. What I did. What was done." Loki leaned on his own bending arm, trying to wave both Coulson and Groot away so he could reassert himself as best he could. He looked ill, utterly drained. The deep corners of his lips were blue. "Do you like it? All those old memories? It's part of what comes next, I'm afraid. The décor is... is marvelous in its atrocity, really. I'm particularly fond of that old study, Wanda. Do you see it, the one where Corvus and I spent so much time? I hope we can set it on fire as we pass. I truly do. I want to borrow Phil's silly weapon and see what remains of the furniture to vaporize. It won't be any sort of closure, but it's the only fun I'm apt to have today."

A single fingernail plucked at her own cheek, leaving a red mark. "He... my friend..."

"He helped do this to me, all that savagery you see so plainly. The illusions and the torture and the lies. Yes, even the ones I contributed myself. That's his gift, Wanda. That's what Vision is now and what he was then – a living mind, capable of seeing and whispering into all others. And for a long time, he slept while he did so. His dreams were the nightmares of many others. Do you see the rest? You took so much from me just now, you'll need time to search it all. We don't have that, so I'll tell you. He's also still your friend. He chose to help when Death asked him, allowed his own sacrifice to buy this chance to win back our lives from the edge of hell. Like me, Vision is not what he was. I have no anger for him for what's been done. I know what that is like, to be used. To be a weapon. He had no anger for me when I came to complete his bargain with the mistress. That helped, somewhat, on the way to this moment."

He swallowed, looking small and miserable. "Like me, Vision had a chance to change."

"He..." Wanda's eyes sharpened back on to him, suddenly calm. Both her hands lowered, palms down against the grate as the steel and anger came back in new, focused ways. "His own shield. I see it. We need to help him. We must fix what's been done, put it all right."

Loki nodded back. A small, wry, and utterly familiar smile came back to a face still too drawn, too white to pass for healthy. He looked up at Captain America, now confused and thoughtful enough to no longer to see him as any threat. Too dedicated to human decency to do other than examine all his new evidence with that open mind. One of the better hallmarks of the species. He allowed his own shoulders to relax. The strife in the hangar had passed for now. "I'm open to ideas."

Peter Quill lifted a single finger to interrupt Coulson before he got started, having sat on his own question for several agonizing minutes. "Uh, not to horn in, but... Anyone seen Drax?"

. . .

Thor looked up at the mute shaman that one of the warriors hanging back had grudgingly told him was named Gymir. Before them was the sealed door to Thanos's throne, blue light still spilling out through its cracks to fill the hall around them with sickening force. Fandral poked at it now and again with his fine, thin sword, his face dour and lips puckered inside his blonde goatee. Thor knew what lay beyond; that stone's riddle an easy enough one for him now. Gymir looked back down at him, forever sedate while Banner's green form paced and roared behind them without an immediate target to smash. Thor inclined his head thoughtfully, spinning the wrapped handle of Mjolnir along his palm as he glanced over to Sif. At his feet was the scuffle in the dirt where Loki once lay. Lang, well out of reach of Banner, had explained everything he knew up to this point. The trails left behind told Thor much of the rest. Loki would catch up to them mighty warriors in full and due time. He needed his friends by his side first. "I have an idea."

A black brow arched above a red eye as large as a child's tight fist, the act curving the concentric rings around each of the small horns that crowned Gymir's scalp.

"It is not a magnificent and new idea, friend giant, but it will suffice to pass the time until our many companions find their way to us."

The other brow lifted to match the first, Gymir's mute curiosity eloquent enough to speak for him.

"Well." The hammer spun again in his hand as Thor started to stretch his lips in that grim and ready berserker's smile. Beyond the door were enemies; beasts that had done more great evil in his view than merely threaten all existence. Beasts that had done everything they could to take his brother from him for eternity, who had attempted to shatter Asgard in their avarice, and whose servants tried to break his own great father. Raw, mighty rage hid behind that smile, fueling him for great battle to come. "Mostly we're going to keep hitting a lot of things quite hard."

The giant parted his lips in a silent, cheerful laugh at his bravado. Then that great arm with its sacred runic writings flowing along natural patterns and musculature lifted in a gesture so simple it hid the complexity of the shaman's work. _Doors_ were this giant's gift, Loki himself could have told Thor, and mirrors, and all such mystic portals. This door sprung open instantly at his silent but inexorable command, revealing the stunning, whirling gate that led to a black home hidden on the very edge of the galaxy.

Thor's strong fingers found Mjolnir's looping coil and set it to a dangerous spin while his voice lifted into a king's roar. "Come now, my friends! Let us show this beast what _war_ truly is for fighters like us!"


	32. Castling

32\. Castling

. . .

Sanctuary. Cold steel, the blackest stone, and the old, thick blood of countless annihilated races for its mortar and glue. Sanctuary, where hope crawled to die in agony at Thanos's booted feet. Vaults tunneled deep into bedrock so strong it was akin to raw titanium, thronged with the remnants of collected corpses and those stolen treasures that mapped Her infinite realm. Frozen bunkers wormed through the stones of this bleak reliquary kingdom, thronged with enslaved mercenaries, mindless thralls, and torture-medics who honored their warlord like a God of Pain. Beyond it glittered the wastes of deep space; lost ships long ago stripped of anything useful to the necromantic residents, dying stars, and somewhere pulsing far away in the purpling veils of star-stuff were the consumptive radiation waves of a black hole sucking in all the light at this edge of space.

Shored deep within meteorite and the skeletons of ancient ships, this sprawling barrow that echoed Hell itself meant nothing at all to the Hulk.

Green muscles rippled along the vastness of his back as he tore the hastily built but strong defensive structure before him in two. Shards of metal fell down to glitter against the armor of Thanos's first line of disposable mercenaries, of which at least ten of them gaped up at the sheer power of Bruce Banner's unleashed rage. He looked down at them, eyes small but piercing in that broad face forever taut and he roared them down like blades of dry grass.

They were too frightened to move. A single fist scattered most of them, crashing them through the more fragile walls with a sneer to hasten their last breaths further into death. The ones that struggled up would never know what finished the job, never even saw the hurtling weapon of legend that flung them all to pieces.

Mjolnir circled back to Thor's waiting hand as his other finished the job of snapping a Chitauri's neck. No enjoyable fight, these small insects. Too easy, too fragile. Thanos's disposable swarm, just as they had been upon Earth's surface. Many more were sundered by the crash of Sif's shield, or torn apart with a single hew of Volstagg's axe. In battle, the sturdy near-giant was as graceful as the water's dance. His partner in his grim waltz was, to all miracle, an equally fast and absurdly tall frost giant with a staff lined with blades of razor ice. His need to hunker to pass through the low halls did not trouble him or slow him down. Blood speckled the wall where he struck, froze, and then heated again to slide to the floor as the warriors lunged past, hot with their own need to bring justice to the demonic warlord guarded somewhere deep within.

Fandral speared an approaching man clean through with a snarl, looking back over his shoulder to the rest. "What more may come?"

"Not enough, my friends! For them, never enough to slow the likes of us!"

. . .

Elsewhere, a longer and more peaceful hall was filled only with the echoes of steel-clad feet moving in some odd, rhythmic quiet. Doom spared no glance for a few of his 'bots first sent ahead and now left behind in shattered piles. The fights had come to them in fewer numbers in favor of those distant roars of the alien barbarians, but his servants had carried themselves well enough in his name. Nebula was close behind in his wake, waiting with her blade set to the throat of the prize he intended to bait the shadow king ahead with. Lovely Nebula – one king's lost and misused treasure. He was content to give her a place among his own such finds. In the world Doom would remake from the bones of Thanos's old, _he_ would be just and fair. He would remember the worth of duty. She had done well for him, and her careful guidance through the warrens of Sanctuary took him far away from the nonsensical fury of those distant warriors to where he needed to be.

It was Nebula's word that kept his sweet remade Lucia back to guard the rear, overseeing another force of his doombots. A wise decision, he had judged. There was no point in allowing _undue_ pride to be his downfall. Confidence was as much his armor as his spells and his steel, but he did not lend himself to the temptations of foolishness. He had no fear of Thanos. He was armored enough for the likes of him.

Beneath his green hood, Doom marched with his head held high, and so it was with an unwavering hand that he waved open the last door to Thanos's first and last throne to meet that king that his prophecy claimed would be his equal to vanquish for the sake of all he himself could stand over as protector. His broken mirror.

Doom strode in to behold the expanse of shattered, lonely space that was the roof over this lord's head. His gaze swept the area for threats first, seeing only shadows drift across the high rocks above, and then he sought out the face of Thanos. The shadow king hunkered like an animal in the center of that vast place meant for a king's honorable attendance, murmuring softly to himself. As Doom's eyes left their mark on that purple skin, the whispers stopped.

Thanos looked steadily back at him, knelt upon the thick black stone and its six colorful engravings. Each of them were tied together in geometric patterns, the meaning itself something that haunted his own dreams. Doom recognized the work instantly from both science and spell of his own – the spirals of Fibonacci, a symbol of perfect and universal mathematics. Upon the warlord's hand was that gauntlet of his own forging, and set fast within it were _them._ He had this fist pressed to the center of that strange mural and all along his arm the power of the unruly Stones pulsed, contorting his muscles while their conjoined, struggling light gleamed and burned the veins beneath his skin for others to see how a Titan was made.

Thanos grinned at this new invader king, teeth white in the deadly violet face, fearless and without pain despite the fire thriving in his arm. "I am not complete, small king. They fight me and they fight each other. But you are not enough for me even at my smallest."

The shadow king rose, that fist still clenched and trembling under the weight of that raw power. "Do you bring your superior ruler an offering, small one? Do you think you can claim my child, whose brilliant, beautiful hate I sense in all the air around us? Oh come, fellow ruler. Come and be welcome. In _my_ Sanctuary, where the hours of prophecy serve only _me_."

And there, on the edge of the end, struck into silence by the long-awaited sight of what all those dismissed prophecies of his life had led him to, the first doubt dripped a lone bead of sweat within Doom's silvered steel mask.

. . .

Three SHIELD agents and two Avengers were at the ready flanking Loki when movement started at the end of the sloping hallway that led back to the portal. The others were in small but deadly clusters ranging throughout the strange dead kingdom to shut down other threats that could still be used against them, should the titan's plan fail. Loki put up a hand as he craned forward to peer, his finer alien senses seeing a human enough shape deep in the dark. Not even his eyes could make a certain identification, not at this range. Thor's coterie of warriors was still ahead, so he took the first logical guess. "Scott?"

"No," came the softly accented response.

Agent May made a startled noise, immediate recognition. Daisy's hands flexed, ready, but May put her hand up in a command to stand down. "Lucia von Bardas." She lowered her gun, but only slightly. "Lucia, what's Latveria up to?"

The woman came forward to be seen better by all of them, hands up in the air. Strange silver eyes fixed on May, her almost plasticky face pinched and startled. It was Rogers that frowned at it from where he stood alongside Wanda Maximoff, something familiar in that tension. Like watching someone coming out of an amnesiac's nightmare. "You don't understand yet. I am sent with a message for you."

"From Doom?" Coulson jutted his chin at her, his own weapon still trained on her. Let May take the diplomatic angle. He'd be able to take the shot, if needed.

Steel eyes flicked to him, then up to Loki. "No. From... From Death Herself. She sends me."

Loki reached out without looking and put a hand on Coulson's wrist, making him lower the gun. "You've duly gained my attention," he said, audibly strained.

"Doom's plan will fail in the moment he thinks he is the strongest. She knows this, the mistress. She offers Nebula another deal for her own freedoms, and through that plan, I am snared away from my king's sight as well. Nebula... Nebula saw my flaw. She asks if I am a slave. I do not want to be." Lucia swallowed, an odd metallic clicking noise. She looked back to May. "I... do I..." She stiffened, then shook her head, touching her own temple as if pained.

May let the gun droop further, reaching out one hand to touch the rebuilt woman's shoulder. "You know me, von Bardas." Her voice became wry. "Did a pretty good job trying to kick my ass a while back. Doom took you away when you lost. He did this to you?"

"He... my lord. My king." Something tried to reassert its power over her before she spat the words like bile. "He made me into his _machine_. For that, I've turned away the rest of his once he went beyond to the king's throne. He has no robots left. He is alone. He falls this day. There will be no easy replacement for the beast currently upon the throne."

"And this is the sorcerer king who thought he might be a greater power than Thanos himself. How very beautiful," muttered Loki, finding comfort in a chance to bring up his old, droll sarcasm. The memory of his own meeting with the green-robed lord was not something he forgot about. If Doom met his match in Sanctuary's halls, it would not be Loki who would grant him overmuch sympathy. Arrogance paid for arrogance, _that_ was a lesson he'd learned in the harshest of ways. "Meet the new king, same as the old king. A good plan on the Mistress's part after all. Wager we ought drop this rock on them both while we can."

Lucia's hand clenched, still fighting the things worming inside her brain. "There will be no chance. But you must hurry. They have already gone on; another's opened the portal you need. Thor's men, I was told. Death is buying time for us all. Her stand, her... her illusion. She says knows now the hour and the moment where all will either die or survive, as is Her gift alone. That she is already there, to oversee this moment, as she has done for all our lives from the day of the universe's own such birth." The steel eyes went to Loki again, her voice finding some strength. "She knew this, she says to tell you. She says she walks ahead freely, unbound by choice and plan. No chains nor traps are made that can claim her in her power now. Know that, when you see what must come. She is not afraid any longer."

Loki's hand was still in Coulson's way, and that meant he saw the tremble in it. Phil elbowed his friend, sharp enough to unstick him from the way he stared down at Doom's enslaved assistant in a mix of worry and some small, glittering hope. "Right, then. We need to find Thor. Fast."

. . .

"What offering, little king? Your silence, then? I can take that from you myself."

Doom collected himself as again shadows shifted and collected above before whispering away. "No," he said, the words booming in a sorcerer's intonation. His own steel-gauntleted fist rose to beckon Thanos's traitor into the room. "No offering. No bargain. No oath may exist between a beast and a man, Thanos. You invader. We of my land must save _life_. For that, we will tempt you with this challenge." He shifted his head carefully, never letting his gaze leave the great titan where he still knelt. Those teeth continued to flash at him, bared almost wild. "To stop your rampage, we would take Death Itself into our power. We bait you with the only choice you must consider. Her or the Stones. You will not leave this hour with both."

Nebula came into view from the other shadows that wrapped the entryway into Thanos's own lair, blue lips tight in a sneer as she struggled to maintain control of the young woman trapped in her arms. Her slender pick-knife was close to the brown throat and a single drop of red already flecked it. The girl hissed up at her face in an all too human warning, kicking and clawing at her arms without purchase. "Daddy. I brought Mommy. Isn't that sweet?" Irreverent to the end, Nebula planted a fat, insincere kiss on the girl's smooth forehead. "She's so pretty and fragile like this. You know, if I slip and kill her... just might be game over right there. We'll all be stuck in hell together. And _you_ won't get the one thing you want most in all the universe. I'll take her from you forever."

Thanos rose from that single knee, staring outright at his lost third child and then at the struggling girl as light still pulsed. His priority was clear, renewed in the face of what he sought most. Death Herself stared back, half-wild with strands of black hair fallen loose from her veil to stick to her face. Fingers kept peeling, searching, struggling to rescue herself. In contrast, his voice was calm. "You won't, Nebula. You cannot play that shadow game with me. You would take Her embrace over mine. That's your strength, my beloved child. You fear so little, and you long since stopped fearing me."

He took a single step closer as the infinite fires of creation and deconstruction continued to try and eat him from within. Muscles clenched and rippled as he talked, still with that frightening serenity. "You embrace her, willingly. I see it plain."

Nebula snarled and took a step back, the knife jutting in sharp enough to stretch the coppery skin under the tip nearly white. "Bet _your_ life?"

Thanos raised a hand to them both, not the gauntleted one with its searing power, but his other. The look on his face became one of pure reverence as thick purple fingers stretched, grasped, hungered towards Death. Nebula hardly existed for him now. Oh, the sacrifice would be worthy, but here was the true prize. Only Her, against whom all other colors in the universe paled into grey.

She stopped struggling instantly at the look in those cavernous eyes, the wildness leaving her face like a draining pond. Nebula's grasp tightened as she hissed for Death's ear alone. "Girl, you're wreckin' the play."

Death stopped looking back at the man who had hunted her shadow for what had become all but an imitation of Eternity, flicking her gaze instead towards the now-furious sorcerer king. Her voice was controlled, emotionless as she untangled herself easily from Nebula's strong grasp. She kept her hand up as if keeping Nebula, absurdly, protected from the tyrant. She would be the last wall between Thanos's child and his mad notion of sacrifice. If it came to that. With her on the field, the goals were shifting. "That game is over. You brought me here, freely, as I asked. Now we begin again. For keeps. For _life_."

Power crackled and sparked as Doom shouted a single word of defiant command in the silence after her words, the roaring spiral of energy he summoned slamming relentlessly into the warlord. Thanos laughed, staggering once but not falling. The hellish rainbow continued to consume his arm, squeezing and bulging into him as the mixed storm of the Stones found that trace of weakness. The light burrowed up further now, near to the shoulder where the fury of their misuse could perhaps tear him apart.

And then, the light dimmed.

It was Thanos's eyes that lit next, as he channeled some of that impossible power deeper into himself. He launched raw essence at Doom with the casual bend of a single finger, laughing loud and wild as Doom's shoulder dented inward and the lurid green cloak tore away from his feeble little shell. Doom roared with royal fury, bringing fire and the cacophonic shrieking of things from just beyond his planar existence down upon Thanos's head. Nothing else came to his side, not those fine steel soldiers of his make, and he roared again in frustration at this new betrayal even as he knew their numbers wouldn't be enough to help him.

 _Lucia!_

Thanos swatted all this away as if it were a child's nonsense, and then he lunged for the small king. Both hands grasped the steel throat, and that lurid rainbow of chaos began to burn its way inside Doom, illuminating a trace of ruined flesh just barely within the mask. Doom screamed back, howling his nobility away in the need to survive, all his shields called to his defense. It meant nothing. The plates surrounding the human throat began to creak and them crack under the pressure of the Titan's thumbs. He lifted his head as if he might bay in victory, and at the exact second he did so, Death looked up to the other strong life she sensed drawing close. That flickering shadow in the rocks above, who had followed them in like a stalker. A destroyer. She knew his name, too. She stood above him once before, while he wept over the bodies of his beloved family.

Thanos's neck continued to lengthen, bared like that beast he marked himself as while he casually strangled Doom. At first he didn't see what his would-be lover did. It bought Drax the second's window he needed, gave him a clear target to aim for.

That gray, brutally agile form plunged through the air with a scream of his own, plummeting directly towards Thanos with long knives gripped in each fist. Thanos snarled at the sound, shoving Doom away and letting him skitter across the stones of his throne like a broken dog, but he was not fast enough to avoid the meteor strike.

The knives fell, fell, and then found their mark deep on either side of that powerful violet throat. The gold didn't stop them, much less those strips of blue fabric that bound them together along the thick and powerful form of the Titan. Drax continued to yell in wordless bloodlust as he drove both weapons in to the hilt, his muscles straining with the effort.

Thanos shouldered him off like he'd been tackled by a child instead. He pulled one knife out as Drax slammed against a far stone wall, letting the wound gush with thick gore. The other a moment later. The injuries did not seem to stop him, though a moment later that wildfire boiled out of the half-controlled gauntlet in another attempt to consume him for his trespass. The yellow fire amongst the rainbow torrent was the strongest; harsh and bronze and all but chased by true sound. A silent scream through every mind within range. Nebula shook her head, feeling that noise itch and crawl along her perfectly made ears. The fire they made he used to cauterize his bleeds while his teeth bared in denied pain.

Drax's assault did stagger him, however, the rainbow light for a moment turning black as pitch while the yellow fire took control of the rest in the wake of some moment of weakness driven by the loss of blood. _"NO,"_ came the scream, and for a moment it was as if his voice had been twinned by a hollow chasm. He clenched that golden fist tight, straining so hard he quivered, pulling the black river of souls back into himself.

Nebula reached out and grabbed at Death's shoulder in the brief, weird silence. "Time for a tactical retreat, babe," she said, ignoring one fallen king still scrabbling at his damaged throat for breath, ignoring the other struggling for his dominion over all existence. She whirled to be sure their way out was clear and then froze with her knife in her hand.

"There isn't one," said Death. She clasped her hands together in front of her, not bothering to turn and see where Amora, summoned by the roar of her bound lord, stood between the daughter of Thanos and their only chance to exit the scene of war. Lorelei was there, too, at the head of a line of heavily armored mercenaries brought to also aid the Titan's defense. Her face held raw and open horror at the sight of the warlord's tumultuous struggle with the power of the infinite. "There is no place left to flee."


	33. Fading Eclipse

33\. Fading Eclipse

. . .

Loki looked up, narrowing his eyes and instinctively taking a lower, safer position around the bend of one of the last halls before the throne room. He sensed the smaller form of Coulson doing the same right behind him, trusting to his older and more alien ability to detect threats. Thor was unmoved, however, the handle of Mjolnir held lightly in his hand as he lifted his chin to sniff the air as the sound in the distance faded away. He had been much more animated when Loki's small team caught up to his, finding amusement in the flicker of recognition between his sorcerer brother and the massive shaman.

It was the quick flap of a giant's hand that asked the question. _What was that?_ Loki looked over at it, then up into Gymir's broad face as the red eye gleamed back down at him. "I don't know for certain the source the chaos. Doom went ahead, this we know. We may be hearing whatever assault he brought to bear. Or we're hearing him die. One of those. I'd be a liar – more so than usual – if I said I was terribly broken up about the latter possibility."

Gymir looked down at him with an expression so passively, sorrowfully judgmental it reminded him immediately of Groot. He shrugged, somewhere between defensive and apologetic. "If you'd met the man in his natural habitat, you'd agree."

Coulson shifted, looking between the pair. "Want me to call more backup?"

The rest of the Avengers, the crew of the Milano, and SHIELD were still split off into a number of small, effective groups to try and cut off any assistance to the inner throne area while also cutting off any further reinforcements that might get the bright idea to spill over onto Earth back through the portal. The Corp's reinforcements were helping to keep the _Mortalus_ otherwise contained on the now-distant other side, the hangars spilling over with burnt wyrms and their intended Chitauri cargo.

Meanwhile, the portal pulsed unstoppably with Doctor Strange overseeing it for now, stuck open and letting anything through that dared to take that step through the blue and into the black. They had more than enough problems ahead of them without letting that go on. Loki looked at what he'd selected for this first and quite possibly last direct assault on Thanos's throne – himself, Coulson, Thor, Gamora, Wanda Maximoff, Steve Rogers, the handful of Queen's own jotun (whose more vocal spokesperson had informed him with cold severity that they were to either stand at Asgard's side in alliance today or be slain. Either by the enemy or by an annoyed Farbauti for the implied transgression, he hadn't gotten a clarification on that)... and the half-tamed fury of Bruce Banner's massive alter ego.

Loki had reasoned to himself, with a fair amount of sour self-deprecation, that if one was about to go take a last stand against someone with absolutely astounding delusions regarding their own imminent Godhood, one should always bring a Hulk along for the ride.

Thor spoke for him while he mulled this over, correctly enough to go unchallenged for now. "Too many hands in the battle and we'll lose track of where the blades lie."

Loki could sense Coulson staring at the side of his head like an accusation. "You guys even take the innocent line 'too many cooks' and turn it into some homily about glorious combat."

"Well. Yes," said Thor, astonished at the heat in Phil's voice. "What's this version with cookery?"

Loki put up a hand to forestall the diversion, his fingers curling in when the chaos began anew. The halls around them rattled from some unseen force, but by the rushing pressure of it, he knew a thing for certain. "Decidedly combat ahead. That's Amora in the fray now, fueled by rage and emptiness. I can tell by the air's own scream."

"So, what's the attack plan?" Steve shifted the vibranium shield on his back. "What's the cover look like, what can we use?"

"It's a throne room. Long, narrow, bordered by some stone walls and open to the atmosphere. There's a containment shield that allows an open view of the wastes. There is no cover. There is no protection. It's a shooting gallery by explicit design. Only one person at a time could come in from above, and you'd be an idiot to try that." Gamora's voice was flat and devoid enough of emotion, ready to dive in if for no other reason than to get Nebula _away_. To have all three of the 'siblings' this close to Thanos was a deadly risk, but she'd adamantly refused Loki's suggestion to let these others handle it. Loki saw something else in her defiance, but refused to remark on it. They were united in one thing, though, Loki realized dourly. Neither of them were particularly tickled to visit the old homestead again.

"I'm guessing at least one idiot already tried that, by your Quill's fretting. Anyway, I rather doubt anything's going to do much if the gauntlet still adorns his fist, the fullness of his ability almost beside the point now. He was attempting to take control of the stones when I last saw him, and Vision's shields were at the faltering point. By the sound of this anarchy ahead, we're to be walking into the grinder." Loki studied his brother while he considered this aloud. Then he looked at the frost giants again. And Banner.

"And?"

Loki stared at Thor outright. "What was your plan again when you walked ahead of my own return? Hit things in the face 'til else shook loose?"

"'Tis a fain enough plan for most things I face, brother, though I admit it's not long for tactics by any measure you might claim."

"There's no room for tactics here. All my plans are lost, become the mayhem I might else try to ride. That horse has gone rampant and no hand will steady it now. Not even mine." He looked to Coulson last, thinking. Too many cooks. The fray ahead, still resounding through the air. Thanos's rigid control, no doubt his own first and last line against the Stones and whatever rebellion might be going on amongst them. Vision's will, versus that of a Titan. Thanos hadn't won yet. Not yet.

Death within, calculating the seconds before either all was lost, or all was won. Second chances. Last chances. All his plans and all his running had brought him back to this moment, that inescapable cycle of consequence. Perhaps it was time to try someone else's general plan of attack. "Keep the other teams alert. We may need them, we may not."

Phil took that in, nodding while Loki straightened up. He put a hand on the wall to help him remain steady as the smell of Sanctuary filled his nose with its creeping past. They'd taken the low way towards the throne by his uncontested choice, past the vaults and that now-dusty workshop Corvus Glaive claimed as a second home. The chairs had still been there, and the framework that had once held the golden staff, and the memories. All them bleak memories, torn and twisted up inside him. Sometimes he still wasn't sure which ones were true. But the tools that forged them were gone now. He had to concede one point, having more than once been on the business end of the Asgardian-inspired weapon some called 'Coulson's Revenge.' The damned thing _was_ rather fun to handle. He turned and grinned at Coulson, putting a hand out towards the huge black firearm in a request.

Chaos. Yes, it always came back to that swing of the axis for him. If chaos was indeed to be ridden, strap on and damn the reins. "We're going to try Thor's way of doing things."

"My way?" Thor watched the weapon change hands with a small and knowing grin from Coulson, eyebrow arched in questioning emphasis. Coulson took another gun from a holster at his side in replacement, a trusty old service-issue firearm. Thor's sharp eyes caught the engraving along the top of it – _Glockenspiel_.

Loki grinned at his brother, eyes bright and wild green and not a little frightened. In his long, pale hands, the Revenge looked much smaller than it had in the human's arms. "We're all going to run in like absolute idiots and start hitting him and his hopefully few defenders in the face with every inch of fury and frustration we can bring to bear. I want to see Banner there kick him in the arse at least twice."

The Hulk roared approvingly at the sound of his name. Loki laughed. "If we're really godsdamned lucky, it'll throw the warlord off balance enough to buy us some sort of better opening to wrest away the gauntlet. We are in the fading eclipse now, where he clenches them in his fist but does not yet have full control. This is the last chance, friends. All we can do is try."

"Basically, you got nothing." Steve looked steadily at him, no judgment. He'd been in a few hard places himself.

"Yeah. Absolutely nothing." Loki shrugged, accepting his own untethered place in the mess with sardonic black humor. He thumbed the safety off of the Revenge, noticing the way the end of it began to burn a brighter orange. A safety. On this thing. He fought another laugh, knowing it would come out far too wild to pass for sanity. "You?"

The shield peeled off the soldier's back with a clank. "All in."

. . .

Amora turned with a hiss from where Drax had fallen again after a failed surge. No longer as single-minded as he had been in the hunt for vengeance against Ronan, the first thing he'd done when getting up from where Thanos had tossed him was go for the back-up. He had strange help at his own strong back; the fallen king with a head full of prophecy had regained enough breath to cut away some of the enchantress's wild assault. Lorelei's place in the fight was much more cautious, choosing to shield her sister when Drax's fist swung too close to her pale neck. She dodged Nebula's flying knives now and again, avoiding the depths of the fray and staying closer to where the floating throne hovered in its disregard. If Thanos saw her all but shadowboxing, he said little.

Thanos himself was hunkered again, quivering while he and the light surging from the gauntlet warred with one another. Sometimes he looked up, seeking the regard of Death's steady stare. She watched him. Only him. And her young brown face was hollow with mortal hate.

Gods, how he loved her.

. . .

 _Within the gauntlet, within everything, the mind with its Vision rallied the power of his siblings with the lure of life's own fire, drawing them to chase the spark against the blanket of darkness. His target was not directly the body of the warlord, that drenching physical sense all around them now. His target was the consuming darkness itself, the soul-eater. That was the strength and the weakness, he needed to ply all his own energy towards. All his own will; that singular unbreakable force he knew from thousands of minds chained tight into a single strike to come. It might in the end destroy his own identity, take that last sacrifice from him if he failed in his steadfastness. He accepted this potential fate easily, yet hope still lived alongside him amidst the rest of the fire._

 _All he needed was a single crack to exploit – within or without, and the ensuing loss of control could take both rogue entities down._

. . .

This was not the future Doom had been promised.

This was not the hour of prophecy. In years past, in secret places, Doom had struck his bargains with bleak things beyond naming and read his future plain as a great book of kings' lineage. The end of it all, the salvation, and the rise of life. He had seen his own reflection there, cast noble and proud within the silvered steel mask that was his true face. He had _known_. Salvation was his to wield, there could be no other outcome! He had put his whole existence to the preparations necessary for that moment. And when that moment had come, those vile, purple hands of this base beast had wrapped around his neck like Doom's power meant nothing to him.

Nothing!

He heard the rattling in the air, distantly knew it for his own breath trapped within his battered mask. The beast heeded only Death. Maddened, sick, and horrified at the abrupt toppling of his own place in future's hierarchy, he watched the way Thanos still reached for Her. Mortal. Fragile. Still with a tiny thread of blood visible on her neck, below a face rigid with some impossible fury.

He could not slay the beast, not as he was. But he _could_ destroy his will to continue, and in it, buy all the time Doom needed to find another method to win. A small heresy, a gambit for all the power in the universe. Others had tried. But Doom had the will and the need.

As the grey warrior was knocked aside again from his latest assault against the blonde woman in green, Doom took his chance. He plunged forward with a tiny steel knife in his own gloved fist, but not towards the distracted Titan. She saw him coming, Mistress Death, and she arched a single eyebrow in sarcastic amusement at his gambit to end her and bring an eternal, horrifying detente to the war in this small kingdom of the dead.

Before she could raise her hand to his last, mindless assault, all the world before him turned to orange fire and Doom was blasted unstoppably back to the edge of Sanctuary. His suit of armor screamed in offense where the surging heat tore apart the outer layer of metal along his chest, and he turned his head to see all of ruined space stretched below him.

Within the mask, he screamed the single word _"NO!"_ as his hands scrabbled for those old pacts he had made with things that lived in a place all could only know as Hell. The only chance he would have to survive. The fire roared again, alien and pitiless, and, thus humiliated, Doom fell into the arms of his demons.

. . .

"Rather got a kick to it." Loki allowed the Revenge to go into cooldown mode as a brace of giants and one very excited Hulk tumbled past him for a chance to wreak havoc against the black stones of the throne itself. Gamora was taking Nebula's side, barely sparing a glance for where Lorelei was continuing to try and remain out of the fray. The most she did was eye Wanda warily as the young witch used her telekinetic forces to bring as many stones into the battle as she could. Heavy, sharp ones. _Oh, yes,_ he thought dimly as he looked at the fresh scrape along the black earth where that jumped-up sorcerer king had landed. Wanda peeled up one of the flattest of those scarred cobbles, spinning it towards the warlord and a brace of the Chitauri with a single gesture. _That_ was _rather fun._

"Really does. I got an extra armor pad up near the shoulder, doesn't do a damn thing when it's in full power mode like that. Totally worth it, though." Coulson dumped the entire clip of ammo into Thanos's face, frowning when the giant purple alien didn't even look at him for the tiny stinging assault. He was too busy with his larger attackers, all of whom were rather terrifyingly busy with him. "God damn."

"Try the hollow points. Won't do anything either, but they'll make a nicer noise when they bounce off his face. Might be you'll hit one of his mercs with the rebound. The little joys of having virtually bulletproof allies."

Phil slapped in another clip and gave it a shot. No joy. On the bright side, three frost giants all but ran over Amora, who threw herself to the side in a last ditch effort to survive, and one very large green rage-monster was barreling directly into Thanos's ribcage. That perfect round vibranium shield wailed through the air at the exact same second, coming in for a landing against Thanos's face. The sharp, clear sound of a _crack!_ as the shield met the golden helm lanced through the air. The Titan barely moved against all this, but hate was flaring alive in his eyes to match the rainbow fire worming against his outline. The focus within him was wavering against that much concentrated assault.

Thor's hammer slammed into the black slab and its ancient engravings, cracking it in twain. Sparks of ancient color flew to be lost in the dust and cracking mortar between the cobbles of the throne. _That_ got Thanos's attention entirely, and now the cliff-like chin stretched low into a feral roar of pure, throaty offense.

"Could have showed up more quickly, you," said Death to Loki over her shoulder, mild and ineffable. Her small fingers interlaced with each other as she stood watch over the end of the universe.

"It's been a day. Do I apologize for the bit where I might've walked you into a trap folded in on one of my own?"

She shrugged him off. "You're miserable enough over it, and besides, I saw it coming. It was necessary, in its way. However. If you've anything left to throw at him within the next few seconds, you might get to it."

There were more than a few hints in her clipped tone. The Titan was going to rally. Loki looked down at the weapon in his hands while Hulk's fist slammed like a jackhammer into the oddly roiling side of the warlord. "How long on cooldown?"

"It's ready for another full shot. We improved the charger last month. Bad news is, after this one? Yeah, it needs a new power supply connection. And I didn't bring a spare. They're unstable in the pocket, fragile components. Wasn't expecting to use it this much. You kinda drained it downstairs in the workshop." Third clip, right into the powerful lavender forehead while Steve Rogers tag-teamed with the Hulk to try and get him down off his knees and into a prone position. Still no damage, the warlord seeming to somehow absorb that kinetic energy into himself due to the presence of the empowered and wildly unstable gauntlet, but it felt almost as good as one of those stress-relief breaking rooms.

"Oh, well, naturally." Loki shrugged and took his best shot, aiming right for Thanos's gritted teeth just as Banner nailed him again low in the spine with a fist the size and power of an adamantium jackhammer. The butt of an ice-spear crunched down atop the Titan's gold-capped skull just for additional insult.

The roar of a titan's fury seemed to echo throughout creation. Abruptly, all the light went out of the gauntlet. In the split second of silence after Thanos's roar of denial, the green gem upon his fist grew a tiny blackened crack along its cabochon surface.

. . .

 _First there was the darkness and then there was the will. From these two points came the fire, boiling white and alive and brutal, stopping time, becoming power, altering reality, and all of it coming down to fixate on this one tiny newborn crack between chaos and order, bringing forth something else from the ashes of the limbo held tight within their realm of Eternity. Vision rode it all, in control, his own essence guiding his kin through to the other side of the light._

 _The soul stone began to scream, and though it did not have a mouth, ichor drained from it anyway, released by the way its own unhealthy mind began to squeeze itself to pieces. Red arms embraced the blackness, pouring warmth that became the implacable inferno, and through all of Infinity, those lost souls sucked deep into the void poured miraculously free._

 _. . ._

At first, the only sign something had significantly changed was Amora, who fell to her knees with her mouth slack. Something came alive in her face to replace the fury and the soul-hunger that had been her only tether for too long a time, something bleak and horrified. Her hand trembled as she reached up to touch her own face, suffused again with color. A giant swung at her, knowing only she was still a combatant, but Lorelei's hastily cast shield turned his spear harmlessly away. It seemed as if the enchantress didn't notice. The shadows followed close after, thick and gleaming like an oil slick, with all the colors of the rainbow glinting within it. All the souls torn from the universe, left to run free to where they belonged.

The hem of Death's cowl trembled slightly as countless of these flooded their way home to Her at last. Her hands were up and cupped together as if filling them with water from a spring, and her eyes gleamed brightly.

The paradigm altered, his power at least temporarily drained, Thanos fell. His golden-clad hip cracked against the enormous black tablet where he had been kneeling in his attempt to ensure his total command over the stones. His face was a rictus of pure, titanic anger. Here at the threshold, diverted by the strength of his traitorous children. Instead of being empowered, he was being weakened. They were slipping away – Gamora doing her best to drag Nebula from the scene while an opportunity beckoned, taking them both from his reach. Only Loki was close now. And the new sisters, who were fine tools to be drained, but not his to love.

He rolled away from the Hulk's latest assault and rose to his feet, feeling the gauntlet clank heavily upon his wrist. It was still there, buried within. All of it. The power of the stones, though the Soul now lay empty and starved. They had turned on him. They had _all_ turned somehow. And he was yet mighty. He roared back into the face of the green monster, unafraid. His fist rose. He would fight back with all he had made of himself. And he would yet conquer.

"Don't!" sang Lorelei, a vein visible in her throat as her voice thrummed through his ears like the pulse of his own blood. Thanos's muscles turned against him instantly, spasming, and he had to force himself to turn to regard this latest betrayal. All that charm of these months. All the flattery and adoration. _She_ had prepared _him_. Clever, vile woman. "Oh, do not. Stay. Kneel. Kneel, sweet king... let them tend you."

Without his consent, Thanos felt his knee connect with the stone beneath. "Oh, is _that_ what it is like, my lovely king? To be ruled by another's word?" Her voice continued to lilt melodically through the air, all Lorelei's energy trained upon this single moment. For now, Thanos was only a man. And men were forever her domain. She sneered down at him from where she hunkered on a stone, mocking and in control. Her hidden card, left in plain sight and still missed in complacency and arrogance. "You now, knelt at the whim of others. Pretty beast, submit to me. Let them groom you for chains."

Muscles bunched and tore within his great arm as the Hulk still slapped at him. He could feel the rippling aura of the stones but he could say or do nothing at first. He pressed, he lurched within himself, and then he found his place. His lips parted in a sneer and, as it should be, it was Power that submitted itself to his command first.

Despite his binding, creaking at the influence that held him in its grip, the gauntlet rose and his fingers stretched. Thanos channeled all he could before his charmer could whisper another word, and he struck out at Lorelei with blinding fury.


	34. Last Chances for All

34\. Last Chances for All

. . .

Lorelei's magic lilt instantly became a scream of utter, awful despair. She yet stood, her hand out to deny reality as the red mist that still hung before her dissipated. The mist that had been the mortal, beautiful form of another life – her sister. That which she had fought so hard for, seen freed, whom she would have done anything to walk out of this hell with.

Amora had looked back at her in the split second before her annihilation. Looked back with a sweet if pained and weary smile, so hauntingly close to the innocence Lorelei hadn't seen since they were children together. In that quick expression was her sister's care, the thing she thought lost. Since that childhood, Amora had lived only for herself and her own power, and had paid for it with her own emptied soul. In the last second of her exhausted life, she had died for another's chance to survive. Lorelei's voice cracked apart, no longer a chain with which to bind others. Her breath came instead, thin and reedy and utterly broken.

Where she yet stood, Death, that last watcher, lifted Her chin and closed Her eyes in acknowledgement of a sacrifice, a passage from this plane to somewhere beyond the light of Her gaze. There was something to be said to Lorelei's pain, but not yet, and not by Her. She remained silent, gently respectful.

Thanos struggled up as a broken sister's agony continued to fill the air. The Revenge sat cold and empty, so Loki dropped it unceremoniously. He yet had his knives, and as they came to his hands he shared an old, familiar glance with his brother. This plan, too, was a simple one. Thanos was reasserting himself, and given time, he would win. That outcome could not be permitted, but the window of their hopes was closing. Thor looked back at him, the hammer spinning. He saw, too.

Thanos struggled against the heavyweights still striking against his vengeful shape while Mjolnir rose into the air, carrying Thor himself with it into the fringes of the wisping void around them. Thunder gathered and sparked while Loki lowered himself, ready to pounce as quickly and as powerfully as he could. One jump to the future's chance. All they had.

The lightning warned the melee attackers to fall back, barely a second to spare. The Hulk stepped away with a wild but knowing roar. Thanos saw one of the frost giants swing his spear away and thought he had his own opportunity to regather his strength. He lifted that golden gauntlet, feeling that rush begin again. The Soul's twin, the Mind, was exhausted. He did not want it broken, but like all things made of will, now it would bend to _him_.

Only – it did not. His spread hand held in the air an extra second too long, unable to finish the job of pulling all that infinity back into himself. That's how he was held when Thor smashed bodily down into him, all of Mjolnir's mystic power settling unstoppable force into the golden palm.

The gauntlet clanked dully into the sundered black stone of that ancient tablet Loki himself had guided Thanos to so many years ago, the warlord's arm stretched out as if it were trapped in a vise. From the far end of the throne, Nebula tore away from Gamora's grasp with her breath sucked in, knowing that look.

Loki took the chance his brother's assault bought for them, slicing his way in with an enchanted knife powerful enough to cut even titanium like butter. Though he were a Titan, Thanos was yet made of skin and blood and bone under his gilded armor. He struggled, but he could not get away. Thor kept the other flailing arm well away from his brother with furious ease, not allowing Thanos any purchase on the last son he could sacrifice. Loki dug in high and hard on the arm, just inches away from the elbow, and only stopped his pressure when he realized he'd just torn a slice through the very bedrock of Sanctuary. It hadn't been the arm he'd been watching while he did his work; it'd been every black moment of his own past. The flow of a titan's life his own blood price for stealing his future back.

The gauntlet slid as the severed hand within it died, the fingers spasming around the squared head of the hammer without a body now to control it. When Thor took up his weapon, Loki kneed the gauntlet and its dimming Stones quickly away before Thanos could scrabble for it, giving in to those old fantasies of mindless revenge and pounding the warlord at least thrice in the face before Thor grabbed at his shoulder to pull him away before Thanos struck back.

Thanos still had the bile and the furor of his pain and rage. He swung with the hand he still had left to buy himself an open space, scuttling back and fixing black coals onto the unblinking stare of Death. She seemed to be growing as he looked, her shadow filling the halls of Sanctuary with all of herself, incarnate. "I did this for _you_!"

Calm. Implacable. The only great power of Infinity currently left standing. The warriors knew to give Her this moment, and they lowered their weapons before her. "You did this for yourself, Thanos. Never for me." She turned away, giving him only the edge of her cowl to regard.

His hand still reached for her, drawing a single cold eye back to his face. "Take me then!" It came in a gasp. "Whether my success, whether my failure. I am here, pinnacle or nadir. Take me to your side, let me come to your door!"

And Death looked down at Thanos's bleeding, broken form with those dark eyes that held all of Life within them, and she whispered Her everlasting curse to him for all to hear in a voice made of dead suns. Each word thickened his draining blood, cauterized the wounds, infected him with their import.

"No. _Never_."

. . .

It was Nebula that screamed now instead of Thanos, denied forever of the one thing he wanted. He sagged back, hollowed out and utterly defeated not just by this last desperate assault, but by that single whisper and what it meant. It was Nebula, enraged, gasping for breath, screaming years of built up hate at her 'father' until she tore free of Gamora's strong grasp. Nebula, with her agile figure and her own quickness and her own drive to kill. In her mind was a single horrified belief – Death had betrayed them all. She would not take Thanos away, her curse instead forcing the Titan onto them all forever. Nebula herself would never be free, not so long as his shadow touched the universe.

The horror and the fear drove her into a frenzy, guided her towards the fallen gauntlet. Even the Asgardians weren't quick enough to stop her scrabble. The two Avengers, still standing over dead Chitauri, never had a chance and the Hulk never cared. Powerful blue hands grasped the gauntlet atop the cracked green Soul stone, and she ignored the severed limb that dropped heavily out of it. She didn't want it all. She wanted one thing only, the old bargains Thanos himself had forged, grasped for it in hate and in terror.

When she slipped on the gauntlet, with its mind exhausted and the soul still hungry, it did not fight her. Perhaps it couldn't – or it chose not to. In this second, her will was total.

Thor still held Loki back to protect him, the brothers frozen in shock as the blue hand and its golden glove wrapped around Thanos's neck in a mirror of all of Nebula's own nightmares. Still hungry, still knowing its role, that cracked green stone flared into sickening light and began to arc its secret power along the Titan's shuddering form. It forced its light into his eyes, forced itself deep into him, and as the chill of its slavering void began to tear apart his soul to feed, Thanos lifted his remaining hand. He touched Nebula, gently, high along the cheek as pain wracked him. " _You_ were the strongest," he said to her, in a rasping voice full of soft wonderment.

Then the light of his soul winked out, and the gauntlet, fed on its would-be master, fell still. It slid from her hand back to the broken earth of Sanctuary, as Nebula wailed over the soulless but eternally living body of her tormentor. Gamora staggered to her side and dropped next to her, wrapping the girl in her arms. Her own gaze was blank with horror, fixed on the prone form.

Over it all, Death watched without another word.

. . .

Lorelei fell from the rocks, shoving at Gymir when he reached out a gentle hand to help her. She stared at Loki where he still knelt next to his brother, all three of them mute against what had happened. She reached towards him instead, her hand shaking, and could still only bring that soft croak.

Loki shook Thor's hand off, glancing quickly at Death where her face was all but hidden within the soft cowl she'd left Earth wearing. He didn't rise, he stayed knelt before the approaching sorceress with his hands empty. "She died whole, Lorelei. I couldn't save her entirely, I'm so sorry. But she died whole. For you. The one thing she couldn't do in life, give of herself freely to another, she did for you. For her sister. If there's meaning in that, it's for you to find. I'm sorry."

She bared her teeth at him, grief keeping her half feral and virtually contorted where she stood. The hand in the air shook before she darted it back, wrapping her arms around herself tightly enough to dig her nails into her bare upper arms. Then she fled from the throne in silence, disappearing within the halls of Sanctuary. Loki only looked after her, knowing he understood at least some fraction of what she felt, knowing there was nothing else any of them could do for her right now. Small comforts would feel the same as more pain inflicted. Then he looked down at that gauntlet that could claim dominion over Infinity, now dim. It looked smaller somehow, dingy and false.

He shook off his long black coat and flung it across the gauntlet, beginning the work of bunching it up into a bundle he could carry without risking contact. Steve looked quickly around, his shield still in his hand. He met Wanda's eyes, who looked back at him with the same question. "What are you doing?"

Loki didn't stop what he was doing to look up at the soldier. "It can't stay like this. We can't have this among us. Sooner or later, the temptation will tear us all apart again. It won't ever end if they're yet here to be claimed." He paused for a moment, white hands bright against the black. "I know what to do. Someone told me, long ago. Things I already knew, but the point was necessary to make then."

Steve opened his mouth, ready to argue the point. Trust _Loki_ to secure away a thing that could master the entire universe, a final act of madness. Then he looked again, and saw every emotion that ran across the bones of his pale face. He put the shield away on his back without another word. Loki might be known to human mythology as a god of lies, but right now, all he said was the truth.

"Wait," said Death, her voice an urgent command. Loki heard fabric scuffle as she approached. "A moment, please. For a promise I made. You know I must keep my bargains."

He let go of the bundle, letting her peel it back to reveal the yellow stone of the Mind high upon that golden knuckle. From somewhere under her cowl, she pulled out a slightly asymmetrical but beautiful new shard of citrine. She looked up at Loki with a smile, palming it out to show him the way the natural facets of this new gem caught even the dying light of Sanctuary to twinkling within it. "You're not the only one who took something when we stood upon that newborn world. And I, like you, were permitted by another's word. Gifts. For life, now that we've done what we could. Time still ticks on for us, and now we must begin anew."

She looked next to Wanda, beckoning the girl closer. "I was not there for your friend Vision's birth, you recall. Not then. But I have to be, now."

The two gems touched facets together, the sparkling new and the dimmed old. The moment of transition was anti-climactic, a small gleam of light. Like a tiny star. "He will not be quite as he was. He will not have the infinite burrowed deep within his soul. Loki is right, it all must go while we can choose to free ourselves from it. But he will be yours, your Vision, alive and aware. He will have his memories, Wanda, and all his dawns." Death reached up and gently took Wanda Maximoff's wrist. The young witch's eyes were huge as she stared down into Death's gentler smile. "So I pass this newborn life to you in trust, to take it where it must go."

Wanda curled her hand around the gift of Vision's life as Death let go, warm light pouring for a moment between her small fingers. Loki resumed bundling the coat around the artifact that had nearly ruined them all, looking up to Phil. "Get everyone out of here. When I leave, I think it's a certainty the portal will start to destabilize. Worst case, I'm certain Stephen and Gymir can get all you lot home, but might as well make it easier for them."

"What about you?" Thor all but blurted the worried question while Phil took in the command with a short nod. Gymir, too, moved easily among the group, waving his hands along in a mild chivvy as the other giants filed up to leave the space. A few of these looked back at the tableau at the foot of Thanos's throne, and at the still form of the titan who had caused all this damned trouble. One green foot kicked at the titan as Banner's alter ego chose to move and rumble against those closest to his own size.

Loki noticed that detail with a small, wry smile. "Don't worry about me. I'll find my way back. From these paths, I always come back." He stood up, the thick chunk of baggage feeling oddly heavy in his arms. "I promise, Thor. I will return, and shortly. I'm not running this time." He grinned with ironic lightness now, instead of showing he was touched by his brother's fear. "I don't think I have to anymore. But I _do_ have to fall. Just one more time. Don't fret." He jutted his chin towards Coulson. "You've seen this routine before."

"And it kinda blows." Coulson lifted a hand. "Seeya back at the ranch."

"Soon," said Loki. Then he took a few steps with that bundle of Infinity clutched close to his chest, and he dropped one more time from Sanctuary to find all those secret roads between the worlds.


	35. The Watcher

35\. The Watcher

. . .

 _And again,_

 _out flew the web and floated wide,_

 _that mirror crack'd from side to side..._

 _. . ._

 _pages rustling, rushing, rubbing, the odd cadence of a thousand scripts where PEOPLE and ACTIONS were written loud and rushed dialogue found itself squared into narrow shapes for the future artist to read and imagine or for the director to piece together in his mind_

 _. . ._

 _and in the beginning and in the end were the words, only the words_

 _. . ._

 _Loki spoke to Loki, one young and old, the other old and young. He was only just become the God of Change, and before him was the God of Stories. His own voice held a small thread of worry plain to be heard. "The gems are infinity themselves. Each one powerful enough to overtake the unprepared. All of them together, in the hands of someone like Thanos... it will be the end of everything."_

 _The God of Stories was calm, urging him to see what in truth they both knew to their bones. "Yes, but they're also tied to one universe alone. They are a reflection, a distillation of that universe. That's their sole weakness, Loki. Which makes it Thanos's weakness."_

 _Loki studied the wolfish face, considering the paths between. The fragments of reality he'd passed through in his life, the roads this other deity had to casually walk down just to have this conversation. Like going through a door that couldn't ever be closed. Not for a Loki. "...And our strength."_

 _A single black-nailed finger raised, the God of Stories grinning from that moment to the rushing now where we fall between seconds and realities. "You've got it."_

. . .

He stood in New York City, not far from Times Square, and New York was alive even as the sun dipped below the horizon to burn the sky a boiling, rich orange. Loki clutched the heavy bundle still close to his chest, although all his tired senses told him that he'd succeeded in winding his way down one more crucial path. Here, countless paths and pages away from their home universe, the gauntlet's cargo could hold no dominion. The stones could not sing, nor wheedle, nor tempt him to draw from their power. No more. In the weariness that filled him was a new and rising sense of freedom, stronger than all the small victories that he'd won on the long days leading to this.

Without greed or desire, he clutched them instead for some odd comfort against the absurdity of what he looked at. High on a shiny banner was apparently one of Tony Stark's red and golden faceplates, but it looked out of place to him somehow. As if the angles of his reality were just out of joint. Then he realized this made perfect sense – _he_ was the one out of joint, and he stood before a place that sold illusions and story to those amused by such things. The image was a character's art only, no photograph. He laughed, soft and wild and deeply, deeply amused by the mummery before him, and he unfurled his coat to put it back on. The gauntlet dangled harmlessly from his hand as he finished adjusting his shoulders, its golden dignity dulled and silent and still carrying that odd, almost plasticky fakeness. Its gems could be pastes; corny rhinestones bought for glittering shine and not to last.

Standing there in New York, before this odd little shrine devoted to a story both intimately familiar and also, here, utterly different to his experience, no one looked at him twice as he waved open the door to the strange museum of Marvels.

. . .

Loki followed his instincts, staring at movie props and painted images with silent bemusement. A good thing he'd long since understood the nature of all the realities laying atop each other like a book – for a moment allowing some dry gratitude to that long ago yellow-robed Keeper who had forced some of this knowledge into him, that other echo of his then-darker self – else this scene would have had his damaged sense of sanity teetering again.

Here there were one-sheet posters, and little scrawled autographs, and there were covers of stories that he thought he knew but realized perhaps he didn't. There, he followed a dimly lit trail through the closed museum along a hall of props set up in well-lit displays. And he had to stifle his laughter again. In their glass cases, those props to him looked like child's play. Plastic gold and buffed cheap metals, all gimmickry to playact tales he had seen lived and died for, blown up huge for audiences chewing popcorn and cheering the best lines.

It was the sight of his own costume that nearly killed the silence once and for all; straps of blackish leather he wasn't certain were authentic and soft green he could tell were only pretty scraps and not full undertunics as befit a real prince of Asgard. The helmet – here he could see how they pieced the lighter prop together, the two pieces of the skullcap that fitted along the back of the head and the odd balance they'd come up with for the curving horns. All of it artfully scuffed and dulled, so it could pass for good as real. All them carvings and patterns, to keep visual interest. In a way, he approved of the illusion.

 _Oh, all right, Stark. It IS a little silly looking. From a certain point of view._

He covered his mouth with his hand to choke off the soft noise building up in his throat and rattling the backs of his teeth, then caught what he realized he wanted out the corner of his eye. Of course they'd play this story here eventually. Where else could they go?

Loki stepped in front of the tall display case, looking at the golden metal glove and the glassy stones fitted carefully into the knuckles to cover the spotwelds and the glue. He supposed the story gave _this_ gauntlet a kind of power as well, but it was not one he had to fear. He smiled and found a way to peel the case open easily enough. He set the glass pane aside, gently, and then, recalling with absurd precision, that film Daisy made him watch once where an artifact hunter waggled his fingers and calculated the weight before stealing a golden idol from its trapped pedestal, he, for the sense of pure drama, swapped this small world's gauntlet for the one he carried in just the same way.

He looked down at the one now in his hands, sober for a moment as he understood it carried the same heft and the same importance as the one he'd brought. There was a hollow nook buried underneath the display and he popped that open, too. By the rush of dust, nobody looked inside there particularly often. He shoved this second prop gauntlet within under the realization that not even a false idol ought come back to his layer of reality, just in case, then sealed both places back up neatly. He stepped back and looked at the six stones where they slept now, forever harmless in a world where story was the only real power most could hope to have, and Loki realized that it looked exactly the same. Nothing had changed.

Except everything.

He started to nod, well-pleased, when the light caught him high in the face. He squinted over at it, catching the small, wizened profile of an old man just barely visible behind the high-powered flashlight. "We're closed, sonny. You didn't get out with the last rush?"

"I didn't, no," said Loki smoothly, not feeling the least bit threatened. He kept his accent careful, not quite New York, not quite Midwest, and absolutely not anything like an Englishman's. A neutral, unplaceable voice. "I'm very sorry, sir."

"Well." The old man muttered to himself as the light dipped, catching all his profile in its beam to be studied. The voice came back with surprising strength. "Well. You're definitely not supposed to be around here."

"Yes, I realize. I just..." He shrugged. "I'm not here long. Not much time, you know how it is. But I just wanted to take a quick look at the place. I didn't intend to be a bother."

"Can see why. That is a hell of a costume, sonny. Look just like him. I don't even think that's a wig you got on, and in here, you see a few." The flashlight's beam flicked away from him, catching a picture of the actor associated with that set of props that were supposed to be his own. Loki didn't have to look. He'd seen the human male in person once before, and found a little grim humor in that memory, too. He smiled, getting a better look at his new opponent instead. The man had to be at least eighty, shrunk over and frail. But his hands were strong around the flashlight, and the eyes stayed fixed on him behind huge, thick glasses. The security badge on his chest was readable now. STAN, it said, big bold letters above the scannable grid. Just Stan. Now, where had he seen a name written like that before?

Loki left that curiosity aside for now, focusing instead on how he was going to extricate himself from here without causing a problem. "Is it only you in here, sir?"

Stan the security guard muttered peevishly at him. "Ain't exactly the Smithsonian, buddy. It's me, and I got this here button." He patted at his chest to demonstrate. Loki saw the outline of a small panic box inside a pocket. "I push it, half the city cops gonna come bustin' in. I drink coffee with 'em every Saturday down at the diner at the corner. Got some vets in there, too. Good people. _I_ yell, they all come running. We gonna have a problem, is that what you're getting at?"

Loki raised his hands slowly, showing them empty and devoid of threat. "Absolutely not, sir. I was just remarking to myself. They're only stories, but they ought to have some force looking over them? I'm sure some people might find value in here. Prop hunters, opportunists. There's a market."

"Plenty. Some people make a life outta 'em. But that ain't why you're here, so don't gimme the _you're concerned_ act." The light flickered at him, still commanding. Still knowing he wasn't under any actual physical threat, Loki had the tickling sense of something else going on around him. Behind the thick bottle lenses, eyes sharper than expected narrowed at him. There was a flicker in them, something real and alive. "We met before?"

"I don't know h-"

"You go jogging in the park? Or just one of them benchwarmers?"

Loki's skin prickled, feeling like a scene had just been flipped and all the actors were now out of place. His own voice came back to him, startled and clipped. "Who are you?"

Stan scoffed at him. "I just watch over the place, sonny, I'm not anybody. Get the hell out of here, I'll let you go if you just get. You saw what you needed. Go home."

"Who-"

"Goddamn kids, feedin' the birds in the park when there's signs telling them not to. Nobody respects anything these days. Gotta keep changing up the rules." Stan waved him off, his voice softening into something gentle as Loki stared at him in open shock. "You're done here. You did good. Go on. Don't drag around, nobody likes that. You get in, you get out, you get to the next thing. Nobody likes it when you overdo it. Bombastic, not boring, kid. That's the way we do it."

Loki took a single step back, not taking his eyes off the lone man watching over all the stories locked in this place.

"Go home, son. They're waitin' for you back there."

The flashlight flicked off, leaving them both in the dark. Knowing an exit when he saw one, Loki padded fast away from that place, looking through the weave of reality for the silver thread that would take him back to his, and knowing he would absolutely never tell anyone else about this small world's lonely Watcher.

There wasn't much real magic burrowed in the currents of this world's quiet reality, but there was some. It would be best to let it be, and to let it grow as it would.

A single word, and Loki was gone. That last burden left well behind, and his freedom stretched out before him like a new universe of its own.


	36. Epilogue: The Dawn of the New World

Epilogue: The Dawn of the New World

. . .

The newborn world was alone, but it was not lonely. It, who had since chosen the name Ego for its understanding of Itself, had begun to learn things about the growth and spread of life. From time to time as Ego wove its skin into new patterns and biomes, catching the seeds of life from where they glittered through the universe to land on his surface, it saw Her come to give Her first and last blessings. Death smiled each time the warm breeze tickled her in greeting, and she came and went in the peace that was her trade. Death kept her promises, and for that, Ego no longer feared her footsteps along its grass. Someday she would return for Ego itself, but that day would not be soon.

Ego stayed far away from the inner worlds, preferring for now that solitude it had slept in for so long. It was warm, it was safe, and familiarity had some comfort. But where it chose to orbit, the darkness of space seemed a little brighter where the stars gathered close. Perhaps in time it would collect a moon or two to itself for company, and perhaps it would then wonder if other great worlds had dreamed for parts of their lives, or if there was only Ego. It did not worry, it only lived in curiosity.

For now, Ego was content. Even joyful, among those long stretches and grand eons that would be its life. The universe spun on, and so did it. There was so much to learn, and it treasured and collected all these new lessons close to its rich magma core, where more future shards of citrine had their first mineral beginnings.

Ego dreamed awake, and it was good.

. . .

Irani Rael sighed as she received the latest reports on Sanctuary's autopsy. She was exhausted, but she also knew she wasn't going to get sleep anytime soon. She rubbed at the bridge of her nose, addressing the officer seated next to her. "Play it for me again. I don't know that I'm gonna get tired of watching some of that."

With a nervous laugh, the officer queued up the various minutes of footage rubbernecking – and secretly opportunistic - space-truckers with deep-lens tech and, meanwhile, her own Nova Corp fleets had caught. Tivan Taneleer had been late to the party those humans and their alliance had brought to Thanos's doorstep, but when he'd finally arrived, he'd made up for his mistake of timing with his usual hammy flair. Fourteen custom-fitted mining ships, twelve destructors, and whatever the hell the chained up space-dragon thing was had been recorded tearing Sanctuary apart with professional intensity and efficiency. The job took less than three hours, half the better pieces of junk disappearing into Knowhere's coffers instead of the hands of a fleet of annoyed cargo haulers. A less well-verified report had Taneleer acquiring the insensate but somehow still living body of the Mad Titan who had recently held sway there.

Queries on the matter to her allies within Earth's SHIELD and to the crew of the Milano had amounted to a shrug. They didn't care overmuch about the fate of Thanos. He was, for all intents and purpose, gone from the field and everyone involved was that much happier for it. If he were to become a conversation piece, so be it. Gamora in particular had said a few unrepeatable things on the topic before cutting off the channel with vicious curtness. That recording still had agonized sobbing in the background. Sound engineers identified the noise as Nebula, another well-known criminal associate, but that seemed impossible. In either case, Rael kept the Milano tagged on their patrols, but ordered no current interference. They'd done their part to help, they could be left alone for now.

The important thing was that there would be no more culls, no more torture, no more genocidal incursions against helpless inner worlds for whatever had been deemed as collectible to the leadership. Now the Corp hunted down the remaining men and woman that had sworn their loyalties to the shadow 'king' of Sanctuary. Mercenary corporations who'd lost their dominant paycheck, a handful of would-be generals. More than one had sworn lasting vengeance against all those who had stood against Sanctuary to pull it down into ruin.

For now, no one worried at this much. Emotions ran hot at the galactic rim. Nova Corp would watch over it until the end of time, if necessary.

Irani Rael chuckled as the chained beast casually kicked free one of the spires of Sanctuary, revealing the ruined ancient warship within that had once been its structural core. "I'm going to want a personal copy of this."

Her officer looked up at her with an unspoken question. Nova Corp's leader grinned back. "For future presentations."

. . .

Wanda stroked the ruined forehead of the stiff robot body, looking at the way her skin contrasted with Vision's perfect vibranium red. His head was laid gently upon her knee, and he still looked as if he were only sleeping, lashes softly brushing against each other. She looked up to be sure she was alone, as Steve had promised her. Then from her pocket she took the citrine gem Death Herself had granted her to carry back.

She bit her lip as she carefully pushed some of the wires just inside his skull back to where it seemed like they should go. Stark had mentioned something about bare contacts being necessary, but it didn't sound like she had to meddle with much. Another gentle stroke, and one more, and things looked healed enough. Then she pressed the gem to the hole high atop Vision's brow and looked up at the New York sky beyond the broad window to see if the promise held true.

Vision did not need to breathe, but sometimes he did, to be that much more human. She felt his chest rise and then fall in that soft, living rhythm. She looked down to watch those red lids part with a flutter, the mechanical but still oddly human eyes focusing, unfocusing, and then sharpening to see only her.

Wanda smiled at her friend, filled with so much joy at not losing one more loved soul, that her own eyes began to fill and blur. "Good morning, Vision. Would you like to watch the sunrise with me one more time?"

His hand came up to touch a dangling strand of her hair, and he smiled. "Good morning, Wanda. Yes, I very much think I would. I think it will be a fine one."

He didn't seem quite so heavy now, and she helped him sit up by her side. She did not let his hand go as the soft morning light began to fill the sky.

. . .

In SHIELD's still-secret facility, there were still plenty of places to sneak out and get some fresh air between the various emergencies and horrorshows that marked their day-to-day lives and jobs. Coulson ambled his way up to one of these with a mug of fresh hot coffee in each hand, a small rooftop nook with a series of benches carved with the names of past agents who couldn't be put on the more public monuments. The nook also came with a great view of the eastern sky.

Loki sensed him arriving instantly, looking back at him over the shoulder of a buttoned black shirt with a small and even blacker SHIELD eagle half-visible high on one bicep. He still looked exhausted, deep and darkened patches visible under each eye in a way that blessedly didn't make him look anything like the mad, vengeance-driven demigod that had fallen out of a portal years ago. He looked instead content in a way Coulson had never seen before. He wouldn't talk about what he'd done with the gauntlet, but it didn't matter. One look at his face told the story. It was over. For good, this time.

"Brought coffee." Coulson unceremoniously shoved the mug with the incredibly upset looking cat printed on its side at the weirdest friend he'd ever made, dropping onto the bench next to him when Loki took it gingerly. "Look, if I'm gonna deliver breakfast, you get the bad mug."

"Fitz constantly declares his amused love for this gods-awful thing, why doesn't he just keep it in his quarters?"

"Thinks it's funnier this way."

Loki took a sip of his drink. "Well. He's not wrong, I suppose."

That sat in silence for a while as they sipped and waited for the thin line of orange along the distant horizon to become full light. "Galaxy's still flipping its lid over the aftermath. There's at least four big names the Corp has identified as future threats. More old generals of Thanos, some kind of order he was rumored to be setting up as a contingency force. They're gonna send a brief over at some point, see if any one of them rings a bell with you."

"I only knew Corvus Glaive. But I'll take a look, regardless. Least I can do."

"Did you know he had a wife?"

Loki shuddered, lips pulling back to show teeth gritted in open disgust. Corvus the torturer, with his fishbelly skin and worming lips. He unwillingly imagined a rose's stem bit through the teeth hidden by that awful grey sneer, tried to consider what else a creature like that might consider courtship. "Yeeeeegh."

"She's one of the four. I guess this is kind of the last straw for her, with Thanos going down. She and Corvus weren't _close_ by the time he got himself killed by that Ronan guy, but she's still notably pissed about the whole deal. I figure we can cross her off the file of stuff you knew about. Also we're supposed to be getting a copy of the Sanctuary pull-down by the Taneleer Collective. Figure we're good for movie night, Rael indicates it's a hell of a show. I'm getting the good Amish popcorn out for _that_ baby." That got a laugh, nearly causing Loki to slosh his mug.

Phil took a breath and kept going. "That's not even touching the storms we got brewing here. Sokovia Accords are still go, we're looking at unrest coming over that. We got the Inhumans and the remnants of the security council. We got two unconfirmed reports out of Europe that make me think we're not done with Victor von Doom – plus Lucia's still in recovery offsite. She might be at that for years, but when she's a little more stable, she's gonna dump everything she ever knew about Latveria. May's working with her, and once Natasha gets the Avengers debriefed and archived over this shindig, she's gonna go help out. We also got some kinda snarl brewing with the Wakandan diplomats."

"There's still The Hand. Quinn remains loose. Roxxon took a bite but ultimately lost little ground." There was Lorelei out there, too, as a mystery. Loki knew she'd escaped Sanctuary. For now, he knew nothing more than that.

"Yeah, vigilantes up the ass these days, too. The Hell's Kitchen PI woman, _that_ was a kick. I don't know how this Kilgrave jerk got under our radar, we'll have to double down on general observation going forward. Strange says something's gone awry since the soul-flood – the hell does that even mean – created an imbalance of some kind. Death said she wasn't worried, but he still kinda is. He thinks there's more problems coming. Muttered something about The Book of the Vishanti fluttering alive or whatever. Says it means the Darkhold's dreaming, too."

Loki yawned, leaning back on the bench and using his feet stuck against the lip of the roof to balance himself. He sounded unconcerned. "So, all is well, all is normal, all is utter ruddy chaos."

"Yeah. The universe has been saved, but we still have total job security around here in the galaxy's trouble-riddled backwater." Coulson laughed and drained half his mug, trying to not think about how whenever one problem resolved, seven more popped up. A little too Hydra for his state of mind right now.

"Nobody ever admits it to me straight out – not you, not Koenig, not the HR help desks. I'm _quite_ certain we qualify for vacation time." Loki gestured at his friend with his mug, more than a little openly perplexed. "I just ripped up my entire life and put it back together to save all your arses. The _least_ we could do is grant me a three-day weekend with which to enact some minor personal recovery. I'm tired, Coulson. Look at me. I've got _bags_ under my eyes."

"Tell you what, we'll compromise and take the rest of _this_ weekend off." Coulson tried to balance himself the way Loki had, nearly fell. He covered it by wiggling his butt into more comfortable position. Beyond the rim of the rooftop they sat on, beautiful green tree tops swung lightly in the warm morning air in ignorance of their mortal lives. "Hey, so, what brought you up here, anyway?"

Loki smiled, an odd, quiet little expression. He fiddled with the mug, clasped now between his hands on his lap. "The last time I was given an opportunity to regard the dawn and all the hopes such a sight might bring, I was too consumed with the coming nightfall. I think that was a mistake on my part. This morning seemed as good as any for a beginning in which to remedy that."

Phil nodded, understanding. He swung a foot idly, watching the distant sun rise further and further to mark what was going to be a long, pretty blue day with only this current soft, warm wind carried along with it. A very good day to watch a new morning, and to know that everything in the universe was going to be all right.

Next to him, Loki leaned forward with a slight frown. He put the ugly mug on the edge of the rooftop and out of his way, folding long arms together for him to rest his chin on. His eyes watched the sun's slow passage through the drift of clouds, the skin of his high, fine brow tightening in consideration. When he spoke, his voice was dry and heavily weighted with his signature sardonic bitterness. "Phil?"

"Hmm."

"It's Sunday, Phil. There is no weekend left."

Director Phil Coulson saluted his friend with his empty coffee mug. "Yep."

"You little human bastard."

"Yep. I'll see you next at briefing tomorrow morning. Seven sharp."

Loki tilted his head to meet his friend's grin with a wry smile of his own. "Tomorrow morning, then, I suppose. Since we've got one coming, after all."

The sun continued to rise above the sound of their mixed laughter, and this was not the day it would stop shining over their small but interesting lives.

 _The End..._

 _With Postscript to Follow_

 _. . ._

 _And the shame, was on the other side  
Oh, we can beat them, forever and ever  
Then we could be heroes, just for one day_

 _We can be heroes._

 _~ "Heroes," David Bowie, 1947-2016_

 _. . ._

 _March 5_ _th_ _, 2016._ _All relevant rights remain in the hands of Marvel with no infringement intended. All realities are fair game. All half-mad demigods do whatever the hell they want._

. . .

 _Just a couple quick notes here because dear god the next one:_

 _I doubt the Infinity War in the real MCU is going to bear much resemblance to the events here, which is why I'm in a sense okay with running down this predictive route. I don't actually like trying to guess the upcoming canon, nor am I out to spoil the fun, and I've never done it before in fanfic quite like this. So, I deliberately made some choices that are going to be pretty off base. I made a few I'm surer of, though. We'll see if they pan out._

 _The final Codex short, With Postscript to Follow, will be published in its two-chapter entirety on Monday. It contains an incredibly long writer's epilogue that you can happily skip. I'll say it then, too – you don't have to read any of it if you don't want to and leave it all right here for now. It's bittersweet, if, I think, ultimately happy. It may not even be the last story I write for this version of Loki (but it may well be, too). But it's the end of the arc Loki started ages ago in 'A Clear and Present Loki', if not the end of his tale, and it's right that the arc should have that kind of seal on it before I update the list on and tick the little mark that says Complete on the AO3 series file._


End file.
